Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Freedom is a writer and a pen...

I never realised how deeply University affected my attitude until I returned last week. DESPITE having a headache - DESPITE being bone tired and worried about a million and one things. I wandered onto campus, Tuesday afternoon, a week ago today, and sat down in my poetry lecture. A lightness lifted my spirit - and it's lasted the whole week.
Today, I go into a workshop, for a booster.

Freedom though, for me, is as simple as that. I'm free to go to University, and for that I'm infinitely grateful. But I can find that freedom just as easily when I'm writing. And it's something I forgot in my hurry to write and sell my work.

I should probably say for the record, that I'm a really spoiled person in many ways - I've got a partner that supports my writing and allows me to go to Uni without worrying about too many bills. He also supports my writing 100%. He's given me room to try out being several kinds of freelancer - and when it's gone badly, he's helped me work out why. When it's gone well, we've built on it. But, ultimately, he knows what makes me unhappy - and that is, struggling to keep my income at certain levels. I hate having to work out anything where money is involved - I always miss something, or overlook something, or forget something.
That's what dissipates the lightness - and the happy feelings I get from writing. So I'm working on understanding the business side of freelancing more - which has had an unintended side effect of making me timetable my writing.
AND BAM!
I've written more this last week - despite being at uni, than I managed in the last four (unscheduled weeks) of the holidays. Given Linda was talking about this too, I thought it was important to share this.
You can find freedom, even in places that are timetabled, scheduled and managed to the max. Cause, for a writer, freedom is a pen, some paper, and a bit of free time, IMO.
What do you think?

1 comment:

RedWritingHood said...

I agree. :) I think that it's easy to trick ourselves into believing that we need to be in our special chair, with all our emails read, the kids in bed and total peace.