In case anyone ever wonders...

Where I've been? Ah, that's a longer discussion, and probably not one for this space at this time. But let me give a partial answer.

I'm hardly the first person to say this, but writing is hard. It's particularly hard to do as a sideline, or in your spare time, because it is difficult, and draining, and not precisely fun. Thus, if you aren't writing for a living, or as your sole outlet, it's hard to build up the momentum to compose things when you don't have to. You have to write a lot to get good at it, and you have to write a lot to even get halfway competent, and less than a few hours a day just doesn't cut it. It isn't so much that writers starve for their art, as that they starve because they are writing, and they write (as opposed to pouring the time and energy into a career that pays living wages) because they are driven to.

Now me, I am what you call a generalist, and we live in an age of specialists. I figured out a long time ago that the top 5% or 10%* of any profession is where the driven people and specialists are, and they tend to be the ones with the talent, luck, connections, and above all narrowness of focus to do really well.

Now obviously, some people get there more by talent and some more by connections or luck, but what they all have, I am convinced, is that narrowness of focus. And obviously that exact percentage varies with profession - take sports for example. The percentage of soccer players who make a living at it versus the percentage of pentatheletes is probably very different. (Of course, given how many more soccer players there are than people who do pentathelon, it might even be soccer that gives the worse odds, who knows).

It's possible to be good- sometimes very good- at something and still not be good enough to live in that top percentile. It's what separates the most glorious amateur from the mediocre professional. And when it comes to the creative arts, that top percentile is generally the only band that makes enough money to exclusively do art for a living. People below that band who write, act, dance, or make music for a living generally do so because they're driven to do it enough that they'll endure the financial hardship it entails. The catch is, that they're also the only ones who devote enough time to their art that they can get really good at it.

I write for part of my living. Which is to say, I sometimes write things as part of my job description. But it's not creative writing, and if you're not doing creative writing then you aren't getting any better at it. And so long as I am researching and writing about what I will generically describe as government regulations for a living, that's always going to be a drain on my creative energy. After spending 10 hours a day working in front of a monitor, doing so on my own time just doesn't seem to appeal.

So if I'm going to get better - or at very least stop the corrosion in my writing skills - it's time to get back at this.

*Who knows what the actual number is, but a grad school friend of mine used to spit out the phrase "the talented tenth" to refer to those who vacumned up the work experience, plum positions, and financial aid, leaving the rest of the peons to pay the full shot for everything. Regardless of the number, it's a pattern that was pretty clear to see, and had a dubious relation to talent as opposed to what cohort you entered the school in, or how good you were at apple polishing, or whether you were under 30. Seriously.