"On Writing"

Last night, a writer friend said she wrote when she was in the mood. I said also did that, but more often than not, it was my laziness that prevailed. Afterwards, listening to Stephen King read his work "On Writing," I came across a helpful realisation of his.

He had had a hard life on the way to becoming a professional master of horror bestsellers. He had started writing at age 4, had submitted regularly to magazines and had faced ongoing rejection on the whole. By the time he was in his thirties or so, in his early years of teaching English as a means of supporting his young family, his fear was that he would pull open his drawer in the years ahead and find five or six unfinished novels that he would only chip at when he was drunk. He ended up sticking to his craft and writing awesome horror potboilers that rocked the pop lit world.

It's one of the occurrences that has shaken me up and made me want to write and finish writing. Teaching is more than a job to me, and I'd also like to write stories professionally. To publish. It's not to be taken for granted. It doesn't just happen. I know 12 years has been ten too long for my novels and am in the process of rectifying it...