Except when it’s about something else.

I’m late with my blog post. I had thought that at the last minute Devine Inspiration would give me a good shove in the back and I would start moving forward on saying something. Apparently, D.I. has moved on herself—perhaps she’s read her share of self-help books on deadbeat relationships.

I’m particularly embarrassed about being late with my post because my day job is all about deadlines: getting edited copy to the typesetter, moving proofs through various editing stages so that we get the magazine to the printer on time, and eventually it gets mailed out to subscribers—on time.

Creative writers, too, have obligations and deadlines. The writer scribbling in blissful isolation—picture a cabin on the lake—is not the reality for most of us. If I were dumped in such a place, I might spend more time climbing the walls then actually writing. Writing is a social event; the activities of our lives, the complexities of our relationships swirl and meld in a febrile, creative mind. And as writers, we don’t just draw from our relationships and interactions with others, we are also responsible to our audiences. We need to contribute pieces to our writers groups and blogging partners, and some even have contractual deadlines to deliver a manuscript to an editor at a publishing house. It’s these social aspects of being a writer that provide that much need shove in the back.

Thanks, Heidi, Eleanor, Karen, Mike, Michael, and John. (D.I., I’m doing just fine, not that you asked . . . Do you even still think of me?)