But…I Just Want to Write!

By Vickie Carroll 

Why can’t I just write? Why do I have to market my work, blog about it, talk about it, maintain the social media sites? So-much-work, we whine. Every writer knows this pain even if we have stopped saying it out loud because we do know better. We can’t “just write” because we have to bring out all our other non-writer personas to take care of business. 

Someone once wrote that Elvis had a favorite mantra, TCB (taking care of business) and he lived it. No matter what else he had going on in his personal life, he rehearsed with his backup singers, talked to his manager, visited his venue, approved his wardrobe, and he prepared to do his job. His job didn’t start and stop at stepping up to the microphone and singing. I suppose if it was good enough for Elvis I can’t complain. 

To be honest I am a bit of a control freak and that can paralyze me. It is hard for me to be satisfied with my end product. Like most writers I can rewrite forever and not be happy with the outcome. It is only those deadlines that set me free. If I had nothing to do but write with no deadline to meet or promises to keep, website to maintain, blogs to post—well chances are I would never finish anything. I would write it to death, plodding on and on until I got sick of my story, my characters, and myself, and there would never be a final product.  

Sometimes I dream of being one of those multi-millionaire writers who have “their people” to do their marketing, maintain their webpages, handle all the social media, taxes, and the boring paperwork. This sounds like heaven until I remember that I would then be all alone with my laptop (that I have named Calamity) and with nothing left to do but (gulp) write.  Shiver. 

Off to work on my new webpage now. TCB.  

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Vickie lives in the Atlanta area, is a native Georgian, and works for a major university.  She has written and published many articles and done a few short stories and loved doing it.  More recently she has ventured into the world of fiction, and her first fiction book, The Ghost of Kathleen Murphy, will be available on Amazon April 1st, followed by her second book, The Witches of Half Moon Island in late June. Connect with her on her new blog page just up and a work in progress athttp://vickiecarroll.wordpress.com New web-site and Writers Face Book page coming soon:  Vickie-Writing-by-Moonlight