I am feeling overwhelmed by everything in my life that doesn't involve writing. I truly don't know how other people manage to have real jobs; I can barely manage half a job. At the moment I have just finished a small editing project and am beginning a large one; I have three days of Beloit Poetry Journal meetings this weekend; I need to make bread and stew so that we have something to eat after I finish my popcorn stint at the school basketball game; I need to drive 15 miles to the bank; I need to renew the dog licenses; I need to read and write and read and write and read and write. I'll probably manage to read. But writing is always last.

Frequently I come across "helpful" advice telling me to drop everything in my life and just write. I've come to the conclusion, however, that such advice is for people who aren't really writers. For me, writing is more like drinking too much or eating all the leftover Halloween candy: strangely compelling and life-sucking. I have to forcibly hold it down and choke it. Otherwise, nothing else will get done. Nothing.

I'm only being a little bit ironic here. I guess what I'm saying is that I can see why great writers have tended to destroy their marriages and desert their children. There's a line of obsession that's too easy to cross. If you don't cross it, you think: "I won't be great." And if you do cross it, you think: "I ruin everyone I touch."