The loneliest thing.

Writing is the loneliest thing there is, I think.

No one's making me do it.  No one is insisting.  No one is even requesting.

I spend hours alone in a room, making stuff up that no one will read.

It is completely self-directed; I write as few or as many words as I want.  As I struggle with a book, I realize if I abandoned it no one would know or care.  It would remain forever orphaned forever unfinished.  A still birth. 

Unlike other activities, say like music or art or gardening or....any number of activities, writing takes the active participation of another.  Art and music, for instance, can be taken passively by the recipient.  I mean, all artistic activities are lonely, I suppose.  But you can get a sense of a painting or a piece of music in a few moments, but to get a full novel you have to read a full novel.

Quality control is up to me -- to some extent, beyond natural ability.  How much work and effort and time is up to me.  But mostly, and this sounds harsh -- no one really cares.  In the end I do it because I want to do it. 

But sitting there at the keyboard, it's all me, all the time.




Rereading the above.  Poor boy....