When the world knows you’re a writer, you can expect a few questions:

What do you write?
Are you published?

These are the easy questions. The polite questions… Sometimes, if there is a match, there is even conversation.

Later, if the questioner is interested, they will ask another series of questions:

1 month later – What are you writing?
3 months – Have you been writing lately?
6 months – Do you still write?
9-12 months – {Awkward silence where writing question should be}

I could put this together into a clever flowchart, but really I should be writing and not making clever flowcharts. I also need to mow my grass, but that is another story.

I write these questions down because it’s been about a year since I’ve really done any serious writing, and I’ve noticed that I have entered the {Awkward silence where writing question should be} phase.

As a writer, I define myself by the work I produce. However, the sliding scale of these questions does tend to describe how others see my “being a writer”. For example, when I am writing a lot, the questions go up the scale all the way to “Are you published” (or some derivative). I suppose that i must talk a lot about my writing then to solicit questions like that. NWhen there are no questions, I have to admit I feel a bit depressed. Not because of the lack of questions but because I am silent on the subject of my creativity and my creations.

The simple solution is to write.

Truly, that’s all there is to it. The daily practice of writing. It isn’t easy to start back up, certainly not as easy as it is to stop. Yet, as with any human endeavor, the easy stuff really isn’t all that interesting. People only ask questions when you’ve done something hard, something they admire, or just tried your damned best to make something happen.

What are you writing?

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