To Write or Not To Write

As usual, rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated, though I did feel sort of like dying there for about a day. Punkin has had "the crud" -- aka a yucky cough -- for about a month now. She's been on two different antibiotics for it during that time period, but neither has been strong enough to completely knock it out. And this time my mommy immune system wasn't strong enough to keep it at bay and Mr. Daddy and I were both felled by the cough.

Unfortunately for me, I had too much to do to actually be felled by it. I had to keep plugging along because on Monday and Tuesday we inducted four new writers into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame.

This is, by far, my favorite event of the year, but for some reason it just wipes me out completely every year. It's a very labor intensive event -- lots of preparing in the days ahead and an attempt at complete attention to detail and catering to every need or anticipated need over the two days.

I love the event because I love being around writers. I love hearing them talk about writing and how they do it, and where, and when and what their process is. I always come away feeling inspired, like maybe I could write the next great American novel.

But that's as far as I get -- the inspiration part. I never actually DO anything about it. To a man/woman, every writer I've ever met has talked about the desire, nay the compulsion, to write, to get their stories on paper. And you know what? I don't really have that. I mean, I have stories and ideas for stories floating around in my head, but I don't have a burning desire to sit down and get those stories out.

I like to blame it on a lot of things. I'm tired. I have too much do. But one of the writers I met this week gets up at 3:45 in the morning to write. The other used to get up before her young daughter was awake so that she could write then. I already get up at 5 a.m. every day but there sure isn't any time to write. I think about writing at night, but by the time we get home and I get dinner ready and get everybody bathed and ready for bed and maybe fold a few clothes or straighten up the house, I mostly just want to sit on the sofa and watch television or read a book.

So, maybe I'm not really meant to be a writer. That's kind of hard for me to come to terms with because people have always encouraged me to write. Or maybe it's just not my time. I guess we'll see how it all plays out.