That’s what someone said to me today.
“Well Sam, you’re a writer. You have to just make time for the romance. It’s like a real relationship.”
Oh, I hate when people say crap like that, especially when they’re right.
Writing is just that; it’s a romance. It’s an intimate relationship between you, the creative potential that’s just fighting to get out, and your ability to organize and prioritize your crazy planet in such a way that you CREATE moments to be romantic.
I wrote a blog a while back (way too long ago) about romancing the Muse. It is so crazy vital for a writer or any kind of artist to romance their Muse, but sometimes you have to go against emotion and personal will power. Sometimes you have to MAKE it happen.
Many of the poems, articles, and short stories I have written, were written while I was under the intimate intoxication of the sheer overwhelming Moment I was having with my Muse. It’s in those times that I can pour out 12,000 words in an evening without stopping once to think, and it is usually really freaking good. Unfortunately this only last a while. Then you have to work for it.
It really is like a relationship.
Stage One: If your dating, it’s like that period of time where you are so head over heels in love that the whole world is flowers and beautiful things. Or when you get married (Congrads to my friend Jordan and Kayla who just tied the knot) and there’s that insane honeymoon stage where both people are so drunk on each other, that nothing on the planet could ever seem to be too unpleasant again, because you have each other forever. And you can’t forget that somehow you are the only two people on the planet that are perfect, and you found each other.
Stage One is freaking amazing. It’s just a lot of romancing, dreaming big, believing in magic, and having tons of sex. (I’m still talking literarily)
Stage Two: The magic slowly starts to wear down. You start to realize that, although it’d be awesome to travel the world, make-out 8 hours a day, and bask in each others perfection, truth is: There are other responsibilities. There is work to be done, errands to run, messes to clean up, other people in the world you have obligations to. Not only that but you notice the not as perfect things about each other. To make a long story a little less long: reality started to show up in not so pleasant ways.
As a writer this this that funk you get into where you start to realize that your love, writing, has it’s not so romantic aspects to it. You start to see that sometimes the Muse is not going to show up, sometimes the characters won’t speak. Sometimes work happens. Some times you are just too tired or stressed to think creatively.
This is when you have to decide about your Stage Three.
For some writers, this is the place where they decide the commitment demands too much. Some writers find themselves passionate about other things. But for those truly committed, sold out, romantic artistic lovers, this is the time to re-evaluate priorities.
This is the time where you decide to break out of the funk. To say “I am a writer, that’s what I am, so now, what am I going to do with it?”
This is where you decide to find a way to get your fingers on a computer, or a pen in your hand, and force it on the paper. This is where you Make the Time for the Romance.
This is the same way relationships work out. They either work or they don’t, and it all comes down to deciding who you are, and what your going to do about it.
If you need to find a good book about creative ways to write. Do it.
If you need to talk long walks on the beach, or around your neighborhood to get the Muse Juice flowing. Do it.
Listen to music
Read some poetry
Go fishing
Because once you have stretched and struggled through Stage Two, and determined to keep plunging forward, you’ve grown so much that the future trials just don’t seem as hard because you know what to expect and know to fight for what you love so much.
And when you create the habit of Make Time for the Romance… the passion just gets better and better.
The struggles will come, they always do. Just don’t give up, because we are something amazing.
We are writers.
Write, write, write
Signing off.
AShotOfLiteraryCaffeine 
I like this analogy of writing as a romance. I wrote a post a while back that compared writing an MS to being in a relationship. Thanks for sharing your thoughts here.