This piece first appeared in “The Raging Face”
Some people have known ever since they were five that they wanted to be a writer. Me, ever since I was little, I have known that I don't want to be a writer.
I can't explain it--it was just something that was inside of me. I didn't ever write little stories about imaginary friends. I actually never had imaginary friends--just real ones. And when I got lonesome, which wasn't that often, I didn't turn to my notebook for solace. Instead, I drank scotch.
When I was in highschool, I remember that I didn't enter a writing competition. That changed my life, because, not having entered, I didn't win. I realized for the first time that there was no way I could make it as a writer. It was right then that I decided to be a lawyer and make a lot of money and only write if it was completely necessary.
I feel at peace when I don't write. Not writing relaxes me, lets me focus on my emotions. At 5:30 am, every day, without fail, I get up, get a cup of coffee, close the door to my study, sit down at my computer and just don't write anything at all. I don't even know what I'd do without that time. It's like my salvation, my escape. It's just me and my computer and the words I don't put on the paper.
I have rituals related to my writing, too. I sharpen exactly fifteen pencils before I start not writing. It's now like a crutch, the way I ease myself into just sitting there, not writing.
Don't get me wrong--not writing is very difficult. I don't always feel like not writing when I'm not writing. But it's all worth it when I don't have a book come out--I realize that the only way to not produce a book is to not write, not write, not write, every day.
The life of not writing is not for everyone. Because the non-writer has fulfilling contact with other people, there is hardly any loneliness. There is money--plenty of it. There is the satisfaction that comes with knowing one is not wasting one's life sitting in front of a computer. While the depressed writer sits alone in his cold attic study, the rich non-writer relaxes with a nice cigar in his comfy leather chair.
No, the non-writing life is not for everyone. But it is for me.