Writing as a Spin Cycle

Popular Culture tells me that my writing should torture me. That I should tear at my hair, drink too much, drive fast, love hard. Writing isn’t like that for me. For me, writing is like doing the laundry.

That is a terrible simile, I know. What I mean is that sometimes writing can be a chore, can be a thing I have to force myself to do. Writing is not particularly romantic. I don’t do it while sitting in a quaint coffeeshop while warm rain falls outside. More often than not I write after a long day at work. I sit on my couch, hunching my back enough to make a chiropractor wince, and I type. Often I enjoy it. Sometimes it feels like work. But when I am done, I always appreciate the fact that I sat down to put words to paper (or, rather, words to screen). Writing makes me feel better about life and leaves my mental headspace just a little more comfortable to inhabit.

Doing the laundry is similar. I dread it, especially when I let the loads pile up, but I love the feel of freshly cleaned cotton sheets and the look of clothes hanging on a line to dry.

So, really, writing is just like doing the laundry. And most of the time I don’t worry about my failure to fulfill some romantic ideal of what it means to be a writer.