h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I only joined H2G2 a week or so ago... and already I'm embroiled in controversy... (although some would prefer that I were broiled in something a little hotter)

Anyhooo

I've written some things in my deep and distant past, and failed misserably to get them published. My paying job now takes a lot of my time... more than it should according to my long-suffering wife & son. So my guilt (RC upbringing - I'll have a side of guilt with that, please) makes me spend less time on my Magnus Opus, and more time on my family.

Good, bad, indifferent... that's my choice.

Something I notice in very successful friends and acquaintances (regardless of field) is a monomania for that endeavour. AS you can easily read from the above, I have the opposite of monomania (multi-mania?) I would expect that most successful writers of any description are monomaniacal about their craft -- the few who succeed despite that lack of focus, usually have the focus imposed upon them (DNA was the exception who proves the rule)

SO... If you want to be a successful writer, then you need to write. Every day. At every opportunity. IF you have the choice of going down the pub, or writing and you have to think about it.... then you're not really ever going to be a writer, are you?

As for me... I flunk the test. I'll always be a dabbler, an aspirant, a seeker after truth (or at least moolah for bon mots). When presented with the choices... I'll choose, play my guitar (or piano), listen to some jazz (or blues or classics or rock or folk or ...), draw a sketch (or a doodle), read a book (or a good magazine), watch a movie, play a game, ride my bike, do some gardening.

Sometimes I think I'm the anti-christ of monomania... My wife say's I'm just a bloody ditherer who doesn't want to make a decision!


You choose!