Theoretically, millions of pairs of eyes may read these words. Or maybe none at all but mine.<\/p>\n
I write them anyway.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve worked multiple low-end day jobs to scrape up enough money to pay the rent and buy paper.<\/p>\n
During the boring parts of day job phone meetings, I scribble random words on sticky notes I then throw away. Nobody reads those at all, not even me.<\/p>\n
What drives this compulsion to write?<\/p>\n
After so many decades of continuing to do so in near-absolute obscurity, it\u2019s obviously not because of the Fame an all its trappings.<\/p>\n
I have made enough money over the course of my entire writing career to buy a used motorcycle \u2013 but probably not a new one, and I\u2019m not sure where the gas money will come from. So it\u2019s apparently not for the Fortune and all the things it can buy me.<\/p>\n
Do I write enough poetry to impress women? Maybe once. Maybe twice. Less often than, say, a running back who scored a single touchdown in that one game on Friday night. So it\u2019s not for all the free sex.<\/p>\n
Thus far, no pen company has decided to underwrite me, and I\u2019m paying for my ink with the blood, tears, sweat, and tears I give to the various day jobs.<\/p>\n
Whiskey distilleries have likewise shown no love, which is a damn shame. So it seems unlikely I\u2019m doing it for the perks.<\/p>\n
Yet still I write. Every day. Sometimes twice a day. Sometimes, I only write in short bursts when I can squeeze ten or fifteen minutes out of all the other demands of daily life. Other times, I write for hours and hours, until my fingers cramp and my knuckles bleed and my eyes can\u2019t focus.<\/p>\n
As you can see, the rewards never end.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t write for prestige. Except for perhaps some rarified circles in which I\u2019ve never found myself, telling someone \u2013 family, for instance \u2013 that I\u2019m a writer is usually met with reactions of, \u201cOh, so you\u2019re rich like Stephen King?\u201d or \u201cHow do you make a living like that?\u201d This isn\u2019t a range; those are, with slight variations, the only options.<\/p>\n
No, I write because I need to, because the words are inside me and if I don\u2019t get them out \u2013 if I don\u2019t tell my stories \u2013 the pressure will get too great and I\u2019ll explore, a Mount Vesuvius of words and ink and other internal organs. I write because I\u2019m too conscientious to make somebody else clean up that mess.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"