The Desire to Write

Judging by the lateness of this submission, I could simply answer, “Not very well,” and leave it at that. However, a one sentence response probably won’t fly, so here goes an attempt to elaborate.

While in college, I found the best time to write was during class. Not every class, but the long boring lecture halls were a creative gold mine while pretending to take notes. Instead of being bored, I filled a lot of notebook pages with outlines and the beginnings of stories that would never get finished.

During the dregs of post-college life, my writing dropped off considerably. The reason I wasn’t writing wasn’t because I was really busy. I actually had more free time then at any other point in my life. The problem became I found myself not wanting to write. Instead of stories, I’d write ideas, and promise to get to them later. The only time I wrote something solid was when writing for other people.

In the past year or so, I’ve gotten a lot better about writing for myself again, thanks in large part to the wonderful people in our Lawrence writing group. Having friends who also write has been such a huge help in getting my lazy butt into gear.

Even just by meeting once or twice a month, the writer’s group meetings put me in a place where I want to write. And wanting to write so makes finding the time so much easier.

August Baker

In his pretend life, August Baker is a retail monkey who channels anger and loathing into something vaguely resembling literature. In his real life, he is a Space Pirate.