Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Is Passion Enough?


“In Writing Romances…my soul exists.” OK, so I’m clearly a romantic at heart. For romance writers, passion needs to extend from love of romance to love of writing. 

When I first began writing, this meant that every spare moment was spent either at the computer or with a pad of paper and pen. I didn’t clean the house, I wrote.  The weeds in my backyard, ignored so I could write, flourished and grew to such a height that my next door neighbor, in all seriousness, asked me one day if I was intentionally growing those barbed, three-foot high monstrosities. As embarrassing as that conversation was, I didn’t care.  I had more important things to do – like writing!

I worked full-time, so I wrote on my days off and even on vacation. I have vivid memories of sitting by a hotel pool in Florida with paper and pen, working on my novel Double Image instead of enjoying the local attractions.  But it’s not just me. Every passionate writer sacrifices other things in their lives to write. They stay up late. They get up early. They squeeze writing into every niche of their lives that they can—moments that in many cases should probably be spent doing something else.

Passion for writing, as with any kind of passion, isn’t something that can taught or learned. You either have it, or you don’t. It’s there, or it isn’t. I have various friends who on occasion tell me they’d like to write someday. But then they tell me, “The thoughts come too fast for me to get them down,” or “I’m out of practice,” or “I can’t think of a topic.” Or, life intrudes. Rather, they allow life to intrude. Writers with passion don’t allow life to intrude.

But sadly, passion—while needed—isn’t enough.  Next...what do writers need?

~~Jaye Roycraft

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