Obsession

[rowyn]

The ground beneath her cheek trembled. You must get up, a voice inside her said. She breathed in the damp, earthy scent of churned soil. As the ground shook again, she thought, Why?

---

I feel oddly purposeless if I don't write anything in a day, as if somehow a twenty-four hour period is wasted if I don't do something creative in it. I need to write, or draw, or work on a campaign, or do something. It's not enough to put in my forty-hours-a-week at my day job.

It's not enough.

I start to know, at last, the taste and the scent of obsession. Or perhaps I've known it all along and only thought I did not. Or maybe I am still learning.

But dreams don't need to have motion
To keep their spark alive
Obsession has to have action
--Rush, "Mission"

When I started work on Prophecy again, I listened to that song often. This is a key distinction, between a dreamer and a writer. I had kept Prophecy's spark alive for many years, but I had not been obsessed with it. I didn't need to do anything with it. I could let it lie ... forever.

But it was only a spark. If I wanted it to be more than that, I needed to be passionate about it. Determined. Obsessed.

I didn't think that I could be. I thought that, having been for so long a dreamer, that Dreamer was my nature. People are driven; they don't make themselves driven.

If their lives were exotic and strange
They would likely have gladly exchanged them
For something a little more plain.

But those visionaries, they can't help themselves, can they? They have to create. Driven by muse, by pride, by a nameless possession. No choice, no chance to exchange it for something else.

But I work on this, think of this, day after day, week after week, month after month. Plotting and planning. Not only the book, but other stories. I want to write down words that entertain, to create characters that make people smile. If not this story, than some other. I browse through markets, read story archives, look for places to sell, think up new ideas to sell, consider revisions.

Obsession.

I thought drive was something you were born with, like brown eyes or light skin.

I really thought, I really believed, that I didn't have it.

Yet here I am, thinking, "I need to write something tonight; I can't spend a whole evening just watching DVDs or reading."

I need to write.

I wrote over 400 words on Prophecy tonight, before I started this entry, and I find myself thinking "That's a nice start, but I ought to do something more."

No muse, no nameless possession. I am not enslaved to a driving force outside of myself.

I'm still working on that novel but I'm just about to quit
Worried about the future now or maybe this is it

I can quit any time.

But I'm not going to. I don't want to quit. I like moving forward. I like this sense of progress. I like looking back and seeing how far I've come. I like thinking about what I'm going to do in the months ahead. I don't want to go back. So I'm not.

Huh. Fancy that.

Comments

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Go get 'em! I think something like that is what keeps jordangreywolf powered up to his amazing level of productivity.

[rowyn]

Yeah, Greywolf has been my rolemodel from the start for productivity and drive. :) But I've been guilting myself into working for a while now: "I have to" and "I need to". I think, maybe, I'm finally starting to move away from that "I have to and I'm a bad person if I don't" to simply "I have to because I want to".

It's an interesting process. And not over yet. ;)

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

I love that album. Sometimes I think Rush does better poetry than music.

Regardless, drive (like many other personality traits) can surface later in life. I did not develop the drive to truly write until I got old enough to have something concrete to write about, if that makes sense. Many people develop drive for other reasons--deaths in the family make them aware of the passage of time; getting fired suddenly makes them realize they hated their jobs; a single moment of acceptance makes it clear that they're not a total failure. The reasons are varied, and often mysterious.

Welcome to the party. :)

[rowyn]

There was certainly a distinct turning-point for me; I made a big enough deal at the time. But, at least for me, there wasn't a reason for it. It's not "something changed me". Something didn't change me -- I changed me. :)

I think the real shock for me is that I could. Hey, it worked. Whoa.

Nice party. :)