This is going to sound nonsensical, but I’ll say it all the same.
I wish I spent more time writing than I do.
It’s nonsensical, in that I spend a lot of time writing. My day job is writing marketing copy; I’ve estimated that I produce between 80,000 and 100,000 words a month, depending on the particular needs of that month. And I write freelance as well, and I try and stay busy with that.
Viewed in that way, it’s nonsensical to say that I wish I spent more time writing, as I spend so much of my time writing. Yet, if you look at the allotted hours in the day, and if you compare that to my physical and mental need for rest and sleep and mental decompression, there’s nothing left on the clock.
And thus I wish I had more time to spend writing. Specifically, writing all the things I want to write.
I do fit writing for myself in, but it’s not as much as I wish it was. I’m fantastically prolific, but not in the ways I tell myself I should be.
And yet! I love my job. I love the work that I do. Just this morning, it dawned on me that I’ve started writing my fiftieth consecutive catalog. It’s awesomely fun, and I get to write about neat things, and I feel fulfilled by my work. Not a lot of people can say that in this world.
It’s really about finding the right balance, and I try from time to time different ways of adjusting the balance to make it right. One reason I like taking public transportation to work is that it gives me two hours each day where I can, in fact, write things that have nothing to do with the job. It’s a nice option to have, and this week I’ve been working on a new short story.
Doing so makes me feel like a writer; in spite of my prolixity, at times I feel that when I don’t write outside of work or a freelance assignment I’m not actually a writer, that I’ve fallen into the trap of being someone who wants to write. It’s a subtle thing; a writer has to put words on the page, after all. No words, no writer.
And there you have it. Despite writing frumiously, I wish I spent even more time writing. 🙂