Writing is an Act of Love

By Nicole Disney

When I first decided it would be fun to try blogging, I had this vision of myself creating ten, twenty, even thirty posts. They were going to be stacked tight and aligned like a fresh ream of paper, somehow undisturbed by any of my three wall-vaulting cats. The contents of these pristine entries were to be brilliant, each of them a gem of insight.

Then real life happened, which looked a lot more like me cleaning the house with one hand, trying to tame my frizzy curls with the other, and perching my phone on my shoulder while attempting to plan my wedding well enough it would at least be recognizable as such. Each day was a succession of rushing to my full time job, then to my part time job, shoving a little dinner in my face, and getting in bed just in time to get that almost-enough-but-not-really, amount of sleep.

My blogging process was shoved anywhere I had a few extra minutes, and always concluded dangerously close to my deadline. I would spend my drive to work brainstorming topics, my first ten minute break writing my favorite ideas down and choosing one. At lunch break I would produce a rough version, and my half hour between jobs was used to type it into the computer and shine it up a little. All of this just for one silly, five to eight hundred word blog. The good news: I know I am not alone.

Writers achieve phenomenal feats of multitasking, job juggling, and personal relationship management. When writing a quick blog can accumulate the urgency and scatter of a SWAT raid, how do we hope to keep up with things like writing novels, submitting queries, and marketing? And yet, we do. Granted, most of us are plagued with a perpetual sensation of being behind, but when your brain is constantly sprouting new characters, plots, and chapter beginnings, it’s a wonder we get to things like doing the dishes.

So I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge the immense accomplishment it is to be a writer. Yes, before you are a New York Times best seller, before you are published, before you have an agent, you are already achieving something most people cannot. I have heard countless stories of single parents who work three jobs and still have a prolific collection. When are they writing? Or better yet, why are they writing when they already do so much?

I think the answer is that we are always writing. We are always hearing those pesky voices and searching for scrap paper to record vague but priceless ideas. Writing is an act of love. And we make time for it because there must always be time for love. Writers come home from the scuffle of the world, underpaid and beaten down, and decide to spend the precious last moments left in the day to creating something. That is truly beautiful.

I hope each of you will always keep writing, even when it’s exhausting or means making sacrifices. This intense labor of love is worthwhile. It is necessary. It is a gift. Even though life will challenge this constantly, art is always better than money.

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Nicole Disney is the debut author of the contemporary lesbian fiction novel, Dissonance in A Minor. She lives in Denver, Colorado where she continues to write dark, edgy novels. She is also a martial arts instructor and teaches Krav Maga, Muay Thai, and Karate. For more about Nicole, please visit her website. You can also find her on Twitter and Facebook.