August | 2013 | BREATHE: Michelle Garren-Flye

Yes, that’s right. Me. Joe Romance Novelist. I live an alternative write-style.

You never would have guessed? Or you have no idea what I’m talking about?

Well, here it is. I take writing very seriously. I identify myself as a writer, an author, a storyteller, a book-maker. Hell, last year when I filled out my taxes, I put “writer” in as my profession. It is, and someday I even hope to make a living at it.

But I can’t swear I write forty hours a week or two thousand words a day or whatever is considered the going rate for a working writer. And I’m starting to accept that I don’t have to.

Last night I stayed up late because I hadn’t written all day. Well, nothing but tweets, and I just can’t count those. I have two works-in-progress ongoing right now, a vague outline of a romance featuring a sexy male librarian hero, and a complete novel waiting for my edits. I’ve got plenty to do, ideas percolating in my brain at all hours. If I had my way, I’d be indulging in a write fest nine to five every day.

Ah, but there’s a rub. I also have three kids getting ready to start school, a puppy who insists on being walked every hour and a half, a hard-working husband who deserves to be fed at some point after he comes home from work, and a house that hasn’t been completely clean since summer started…or possibly since we moved in.

This is where the alternative write-style comes in. Over the summer I’ve given up on set writing time. I’ve made the decision that I will write when I can. Like last night. I stayed up thirty minutes later than I should have and wrote a grand total of about four hundred words. And you know what I saw when I gazed blearily at my computer screen at 12:30 a.m.? I saw the one thing that I needed to see.

Progress.

(For some reason, that little song Dory from “Finding Nemo” sang keeps running through my head: “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming…”)

If you have to live an alternative write-style, don’t worry. You may not hit the two thousand prescribed words a day a serious writer is supposed to write. The question is, would you like to? If you could get someone else to do your grocery shopping and kid carting and day job for you, would you sit down and write until you hit two thousand words a day? If the answer is yes, then you’re a writer.

However, if you’d rather be rock-climbing or skydiving or playing Minecraft all day (I mean, hell, if you’ve got someone working your day job for you, who can blame you?), then you might be more of a hobbyist writer. Nothing wrong with it, but you probably shouldn’t call yourself a writer on your income taxes.

In the meantime, writers, here’s the one bit of advice I really feel like I can give you: Whatever you do, just keep swimming…

The cicadas are dying. It’s just what they do every year about this time. Throughout July they’re very loud–so loud and so constant, you barely hear them. But around the beginning of August, they start dropping out of the trees. That’s when you become aware of them. Instead of a continual, deafening, whirring chorus, fewer of the insects sing, and it’s a softer, less consistent song. Sometimes they even fall silent.

And you realize they’ve been singing all along and you didn’t really notice it.

While walking my puppy (who has to be walked at least once every hour), I came across a dying one today. He was still struggling to fly. I thought about how many times I’ve walked my pup this summer (innumerable–I think I mentioned how often he has to be walked) and realized I only noticed the cicadas a handful of times. But I heard their rattling chatter every time I went outside. Loud as it was, it faded into the background, became part of what I expected.

Soon I’ll walk outside and not hear them and I’ll notice it. The air will grow chillier, the sound of children confined to schoolyards in the day. Darkness will fall earlier and summer will end.

My puppy wanted to play with the cicada we found flopping ungracefully on the driveway, but I pulled him away. I was glad I did because in the next instant the cicada got his feet under him and summoned enough strength to whir back up into the trees. I’ll be able to hear him sing again. For a little while longer.