The Weekend Writer: No, You Don't Just Write When You Feel Like It

I had a discussion this week with Kelly, my hair stylist (Thursday's cut--fantastic), about whether or not I have to feel like it to write. I could do a few thousand words, anyway, on that subject.

That did remind me of a brief article I saw in a Vermont publication I picked up last winter. Author Bill Mares (I remember his book, Real Vermonters Don't Milk Goats, written with Frank Bryan) was interviewed for what looked like an advertisement for Red Barn Books. The bit, the essence, that I liked best and that relates to the whole write-when-you-feel-like-it thing: "Writing is tough...Many writers want it to be a painless process, but it's not. I'm a Calvinist on this."

Like any Calvinist ever expected to do anything just when she felt like it.