Whenever I Feel Like It

"Are you just going to write your blog when you feel like it now?" she asked.

"Huh?" I answered.  I was probably doing something really important, like watching Jeopardy or checking Facebook. 

"Are you going to write your blog just whenever you feel like it instead of weekly?" she repeated.

"I don't know.  I've been working on my story a lot." I responded.

And thus you have another riveting conversation between my beloved and me. 

So, about this blog column.  It's supposed to be weekly.  I started it originally to give me an outlet to work on my writing skills.  It is supposed to serve as a tool to keep me writing, especially when I'm not doing so well in other writing forms. 

But lately I've found myself busy working on other projects.  I have been steadily working on a novel.  I work on it most evenings after work, even if I only add a paragraph or two.  I've been working on an essay that I intend to mail off to Sun Magazine, in hopes of getting published.  I still write a poem or two or three a week, when inspiration strikes.  All of this while working 60 hours a week. 

I haven't abandoned the blog column.  I try to update it most weeks.  I have topic ideas.  It's just that it gets pushed farther down the importance list sometimes.  That's probably a good thing, as long as I'm actively writing on something else.  The novel is the most I've written on one piece of literature in my life.  I'm determined to finish writing it this summer. 

I have a writer friend at work named Mike.  We talk about writing most days, while we smoke cigarettes on break.  We discuss our issues with writer's block, when we have them.  We talk about our story ideas, poems we've worked on lately.  Talking with another writer keeps me inspired to write.  I tell Mike all the time, the benefit to having a good job in a factory, is that we can write whatever we want, whenever we feel like it.  Both of us have aspirations of being published writers, but we can take our time, stumble around the literary world, hoping to find our footing, because we earn a living by building cars. 

I'll write columns regularly, as I can get around to it, whenever I feel like it really.  That's the benefit of being the editor of your own column.  I don't have to worry much about deadlines.  In the meantime, I have to get this essay edited and printed and mailed off to Sun Magazine.  They pay really well for the work they publish.  Of course, they only publish a very select amount of material they receive.  Less than one percent of the material actually, which means it's very unlikely that I'll get published.  That's ok though.  I've got more cars to build to pay the bills.