It is one of the questions I get asked: Why do you write? This is especially true when people find out that my books, novels and stories do not fund me enough so that I can do it full time. They wonder what the hell I'm doing writing blog posts about mice, rats and bugs or writing website content for a pest control company. They thinkt that having 30 books out there should be enough for me to live on.
That's cute, but you can't do that in a city like Chicago.
I have had friends ask me, "Why write if hardly anyone reads your stuff and you can't make a living doing it?"
It's hard to say, but I do it because I have to. It's the only way I stay sane. To me, delving into the fictional chaos inside my head protects me from the real-life chaos that is assaulting me on the outside.
I thought about that this past weekend. Things are stressful here. Tax season is coming and that's always so much fun! Things are stressful at the day job. I am also trying to write a new novel while also producing new things each month. Plus, have something in the works I hope will lead to a publishing deal with one of Amazon's publishing arms.
It's stressful.
But then, I finally get an hour or two to myself and I site down at the computer and I open the novel I am working on. It takes a moment or two and suddenly that switch gets thrown. I slip back into Deklan Falls' world and suddenly everything else around me disappears. It's like what heroin addicts talk about when they talk about shooting up. You just don't care about the things hammering you down on the outside. The story, the characters, they're familiar to me now to stepping back into Oldtowne is like coming home. The words fly from my fingertips and I am gone.
It's not really god-like, it's something else. It's like being welcomed back home by all of your old friends who are excited to tell you what they've been up to while you were gone. It's coming home.
The stories in my head have to come out. If not a single other person read them, I would still write. I would still publish. I do it becasue I have to, but I also do it because it's my refuge. It's the place where, despite being scary and spooky and full of murder and mayhem, I feel comfort and at home.
So, that's why this writer writes.
And for you, dear readers. Always, always for those of you who do find me and read my work.
BWA