In a perfect world, I would be a writer.  I would have listened to my teachers and my own inner voice some 20 years ago, developing a focus on my writing in the 80s instead of now.  If it was a skill with which I could make a living, I would now be doing so.  How many times have I said I have had a passion for writing all my life?  Too often, I fear.  Yet, it remains one of the few things that I have a burning desire to excel in.

Luckily and predictably, Jenny came through for me.  During the course of our normal daily e-mail conversation, I offhandedly remarked that I was "trying to set aside some time moving forward to work on books.  I want to have scheduled time to dedicate to writing, otherwise it'll be something on my list that gets bumped because it's not critical for day-to-day living.  The more I think about writing, the more I want to do it.  I really wish I'd [started] this little endeavor 20 years ago when it was such a high item on my priority list.  Well, thus is life."

I did not intend to voice despair over not attempting the writing gig before now, but ultimately that is precisely what I communicated and what I felt.  Jenny, in her infinite wisdom and common-sense approach, took me in hand (digitally speaking, of course) and gently chided me for my simplistic oversight of the obvious: "Think about it like this, you may wish you had started writing 20 years ago, but you start now.  So in 20 years…..  I mean, don't focus on the negative there, take a page from Derek and focus on the [positive]."

I felt as though I stared into the flash of a camera.  It was an epiphany, a moment of clarity that provides equal doses of shock and satisfaction.  I realized at that moment that she was correct.  My failure to try writing before now embarrassed me in some way, a personal failure which displeased me more than I realized — perhaps more than its importance warranted.  I also have such a passion for writing that I would love to be able to do it all the time right now.

Had writing been unpropitious so many years ago?  Had I been too goal-oriented to see beyond the immediate financial satisfaction in computers to the detriment of what I love to do?  Was I too analytic, believing the art of writing would not be challenging enough for me, for a person who loves math and science?  Would that taint me in some way?

When I was in high school, I wrote as much for me as I did for others.  I wrote letters, I wrote poetry, I wrote papers and analyses, I wrote short stories, and I wrote my journal.  Writing empowered me.  Then I betrayed it.  I justified this by dismissing writing as something less likely to be useful or applicable to the real world.

But it would.  It would make me think, force me to grow, change me in ways I could not yet imagine.  More importantly — and the question each of us must ask ourselves — do I want to then spend the next sixty years of my life in a high-stress environment?  For me, that answer is a resounding "no".

Sure, I'm worried that I won't be able to support myself on my writing talents alone, that I don't have the "right stuff" to get published and to be successful at it.  Luck may enable me to scrape out a living, but accomplishing the minimum would disappoint the people in my life, would it not?  Being an "author" seems to have a rather large dollar value associated with it.  You mustn't just survive; you must be successful and enjoy a luxurious lifestyle.  But I can't just live to please other people.

After much thought and consideration, I sacrificed my dreams of Stephen King-dom for a reality-based approach.  I am comfortable now.  The living I make now sustains me, it sustains The Kids, and it provides comfort.  I need not ask for more.  And perhaps this is as much an attempt to convince myself of that as it is to communicate it to you.  Delusions of grandeur aside, I enjoy writing so much that doing it for the same living I now enjoy would be a dream realized.

Oh, and I won't give up hopes of being so filthy rich that I can spend all my time doing whatever I want, like traveling, partying, buying hookers, scoffing at the little guy, and generally being a financial hoity-toity.  You know you want it.