Passion

Have you ever met someone and within ten minutes or so of talking to them you knew what they enjoy doing the most? I have, several times. When you have the gift of gab sometimes you can bring stuff out of people and you don’t have to try very hard. These things that you find out about someone in that first ten minutes are their passions—or better put, it is what they are passionate about.

Take a moment and think about what you are passionate about. Okay, okay, other than sex. Think about something else for a moment here. What is it that you are drawn to the most? What is it that you have loved since you were a child and still love now? What is it that you find time to do no matter what is on your plate?

Do you have one thing in your mind, yet? Okay, that one thing is your passion. It is the one thing that you will do with your free time—or the one thing you will make free time for. What is it? Working on cars? Playing basketball? Drawing? Knitting? Photography? Writing?

Writing?

Hmmm . . . yeah, that is where my passion is. I love to write. I write more than I probably should in most people’s eyes and not enough in my own. For me, finding the time to write is not an issue. Is there a television show that my wife is watching after the kids go to bed on the nights she doesn’t work? Well, there’s an hour right there. How about on the nights she does work? There is anywhere from one to three hours, depending on when the children go to sleep.

I'm fortunate to have a job where I can write during the day on my down time. It is truly a blessing and is one of the things I really love about my job. There is usually no less than two hours or so for me to write. Then there's my lunch hour. So I have, potentially, six hours of a day to spend writing. Realistically, I don't spend six hours a day writing—I have other responsibilities that I must fulfill and these things take part of that time away, but they are things related to, you guessed it, writing.

Fran touched on finding the time to write, even when you work from home when time seems to be at an optimum for someone to write. Unlike a lot of writers, I have to have some sort of distraction throughout the process. This is not a joke—I am serious here. If I write for three hours, I stop and check my e-mail or go to online forums or get up and get a drink or something, but it is very important for me to move around a little or shut the brain off for a minute or two in order for me to complete a story. It's kind of a refreshing or recharging of the mental batteries.

Just in the last fifteen minutes I have goofed off on Youtube twice, looking up Video Killed the Radio Star and found this really cool version of the song by a group called The Wrong Trousers.

The other thing about my passion is this: It's not a job for me. Even when I have a deadline to meet or some sort of time crunch, it still doesn't feel like a job. I write because I want to, I desire to, I need to. Not because someone wants me to have them a story by tomorrow morning at eight a.m.

No, it's not a job. It's more like an addiction. I have to write. I have to get all of these words out of my head and onto paper or the computer. If I don't, I fear my head will explode. Well, not really, but I wrote a story once about that very thing. However, I do get cranky when I don't write. It is my drug of choice—words and putting them together.

So, back to this passion thing. It is described one way as an intense enthusiasm, a strong liking for a subject or activity. Yeah, that really sums up my feelings for writing. But, what about you? Where does your passion lie? What is the one thing you find yourself drawn to (other than sex—come on folks)? If it is writing, you will find the time to do it. After the kids go to bed or when the spouse is on the phone or outside working in the yard or whenever.

Passion equals time—if you're passionate enough for something you WILL find the time to do it. If you were to walk up to me right now and start talking, asking me about my life, you will come away knowing that writing is my passion.

For now, I'm AJ and I'm out.