This is interesting, and something I've been meaning to write about in here for a couple days now -- it involves writing funks. That's the best thing I can call it. I don't believe in writer's block, for one thing, because I think that can be used as a crutch. No, writer's funk is more insidious.

My fellow writer pal Samantha Ling is in a sort of writer's funk right now, and when I read her recent journal entry about it, I was just nodding my head like crazy. She nailed the same feeling that I'd had for most of July, and one that I've had off and on for the past few years. Go read her entry and come back here.

Okay, got it? She describes the sensation quite well, how it feels like you're just stuck at a red light, waiting, waiting, waiting for the light to turn green. See, once you reach a certain point as a writer, when you realize that there's more to the whole process than just putting words down on paper in a logical order, you learn that there are certain things out of your control. You do have to wait a lot -- to hear back from editors, to make that first sale, to make that 38th sale, and so on.

And then there's the feeling of "Why the HELL am I doing this?" I had that feeling last month, after getting my novel rejected from a handful of agents not interested in it. That's the thing -- you can't do this for the money, because most fiction writers never make enough off their fiction to quit their Day Jobs.

But here's the rub -- you end up working two jobs. One is the Day Job that pays the bills. The second is your real love, the fiction writing, but it rarely makes you much money, and if you're anything like me, that's where you devote most of your energy, instead of the Day Job. So the Day Job gets sort of back-burnered. It's a weird conundrum. There's the writing career which you'd do anything to make a success, then there's the other career which you have to have to pay the bills.

And, if you're like me (um, writing this while I'm at the Day Job, ahem), your Day Job may occasionally suffer. Samantha stated that she felt like her career was on hold -- at that red light. That's a sucky feeling. That stuck feeling seems to creep into the rest of your life as well, and makes you question why you bother with writing. It's a crappy feeling, and it makes me curious about a couple-three things.

First off, what other fiction writers get this feeling, and how the hell do you deal with it? Do you feel like you're working two jobs? Do you ever question what the point of fiction-writing is?

And finally, and this probably sounds weird, but do you find this "writer's funk" hitting you at a certain time of year? I notice I get it in the late summer time, and some of you know what happened when I got it last year 'round this time! I think this summertime funk happens for me because I get tired of not seeing the sun when it's nice out. I have no problem being a hermit in the winter time. But in the summer I get claustrophobic, I guess. It'd be nice if my office at work had windows...

Anyhoo, just wanted to think out loud a bit about this weird malady that I'm sure most creative types feel. A side-note -- the best way for me to get out of a funk is to do something different, whether it's reading that novel I've been putting off for a while, or finally putting together the stories for Intracities, which has got me chomping at the bit to start writing again. Just ignore those fucking red lights, eh? Later!