Every writer is different. And every book.

I speak here for myself. Other writers are probably different. In fact, every writer is probably different from each other. Hell, every book writing experience is different from each other.

But writing full time is a strange way of life.

For me, it's very isolating. To be effective, I have to pretty much sequester myself for the interim. Less T.V., less reading, less going out of the house, less interaction with others.

I don't want the fictional flow interrupted.

Cameron was asking why writing a book was so much harder than writing a blog.

For me, it's the difference between keeping track of one or two things at a time, and keep track of hundreds, thousands of interrelated threads and thoughts.

Plus, a blog is ephemeral. Yeah, it stays on the net, but many entries will lose pertinence after awhile.

A book is supposed to hold together, forever.

Plus -- to be frank, I don't think I'm a good enough novel writer for it to be easy, and writing isn't easy enough for me to be a good enough novel writer. I need something extra. I need to take time and effort to make it readable. (And even then, I wonder if I succeed.) I need to wait for inspiration a little too often for it to be fast. I need time between re-readings to keep some freshness. I need some help from others to spark changes.

So for me, it always seems like more needs to be done.

I was mentioning this to a successful pro writer once, and he looked at me in shock and said, "Why would you ever send it off if it wasn't perfect?"

Which shocked me in return.

Perfect? I envy him his certainty, but that never comes to me. I don't care how long I take, or how much work I put in.

In fact, I have the opposite danger of taking a perfectly good story and ruining it. Like working on any art project, there's that moment where you need to stop.

Like I said, every writer is different.

The other dangerous thing for me about writing besides the danger of isolation, is that it almost invites laziness.

It's not really laziness, but that's how it must seem to others. Because I need to mope around, cogitate, drift and daydream. I want to daydream, let me mind wander. Wait for the thought, the idea, the phrasing.

So it doesn't LOOK like I'm really writing. It looks like I'm lazing about. Staring into space, laying back on the futon. Doing nothing.

Thankfully, Linda understands this -- in fact, there are times I lose her to her own fictional world for a few weeks or months. (Unfortunately for her, I'm more demanding of her time than she is, for which I'll try to do better next time now that I've been reminded what it's like...)

I'll tell you what: I'm a champion daydreamer, moper, laze around the house kind of guy. I take to it like a fish to water.

Helps that I'm a loner and being alone doesn't bother me in the least.

I've mentioned before, I think owning a store was probably a better life for me personally than being a writer. Being an "author" has more romance to it, but its cost for an isolating, lazy person like me probably would've been too high.

Not to mention the creative feedback was much faster and I could actually make a living.