Writing's a beach

Sorry for the delay in posting...We just returned from a week at the beach. Here's something I wrote while I was down there:

Here I am at the beach. Having declared after a few Coronas that I could write anything while I’m here in paradise--novel, short stories, poetry, blogs--you know, basically, anything except the articles that are due next week, I decided I’d better get to it. And also it’s raining, and I have nothing better to do.

I have a love/hate relationship with writing. I love to write. With writing I can tell stories without losing one’s attention mid-sentence to the television, without being interrupted and losing my train of thought by my children’s request for candy, without mispronouncing a word (although I may use one incorrectly now and then) and without forgetting the punch line. Unlike conversation, I can read, re-read it, think on it, sleep on it, or say, “Oh, who cares?” and write it anyway.

Although it’s extremely satisfying if someone else reads my work, and, dare I hope, even likes it, and, perhaps, best of all, tells me he or she does, ultimately, it doesn’t matter if anyone reads it or not. It is written. It’s off my chest, out of my mind, and on “paper,” and that - even if it is later declared nothing but gibberish - makes it real. That’s why I love writing so.

Unfortunately, I seem to hate to find time to write for pleasure. Sadly, at home, my little budding novel comes last on my daily agenda, after the husband, the kids, the dogs, the writing I do to pay the bills, the shopping, the dishes, and, lately, even termites.

Yet, I keep it in the back of my mind and whenever I have the luxury of time such as the rare moment my house is clean or it’s raining at the beach, I pull it out and work it on it in bits and pieces, feeling grateful that I started it and hoping it will continue to nag me until it’s done.

And who knows? Perhaps one day my fiction will even pay for a beach house. If not, I can pull out my pen and paper and pretend.