Step 3 – Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to a power greater than ourselves

Okay, to recap. The third step is about living as our best selves, giving up on the fantasies of writing, and accepting the reality. Living the dream.

So part of the joy of my online presence is that I get to interview writers, and I started asking people if they could take a pill to remove the desire to write, would they take the pill?

Most said no. Most love writing and wouldn’t give it up.

Me? I’d take the pill because my life would be so much easier if I didn’t have a full-time job I try to cram into the cracks of my other full-time job and the rest of my life. William Faulkner was a mailman before he hit it big and he used to throw away mail so he could write more. Henry Miller was more realistic. He just hung out in Paris and wrote, poor as the lice in his mattress.

But I have to wonder; why was I given this desire to create? Other people don’t have it, but man, I have it in spades. Why?

The fact is, every writer has a unique voice and a unique perspective. Give two writers the same prompt, and you’ll always get wildly different results. Always. Because we are unique.

So if I have the desire to write, then I have a duty to the universe to write my stories. Why else would I want to write?

Yes, I watched way too much TV growing up. I was hurt. I was alone. I ran away into stories, and I began to tell myself stories when I got bored. So I was molded into a writer, but now that I am one, I can’t just quit. Because I have a duty.

I have friend who wrote a wonderful novel about heaven, hell, angels, the whole deal. In her book, she had a moving scene where it showed what happened when people died. As the people died, a dove would come and draw out the song of their life, and that song would join the infinite symphony of the universe.

My stories are my song. I am doomed to write them. Doomed, maybe blessed. Depends on the day. The Sikhs wear a steel bracelet as a symbol for their connection to God. It’s steel because the Sikhs believe they are shackled to God. No way out.

In the same way, as a writer, I am shackled to God.

I have to surrender to my writing, make time for it, make it happen. Because no one can write the stories I can write and that means I have a duty.

At times, it can be a divine form of slavery.