A few weeks ago in response to a post on my blog many of you commented on whether you would still write even if you won the lottery. The overwhelming response was

YES! YES! YES!

If you’re like me (and I’m guessing you are…most of the time) you rarely go back to read posts from fellow bloggers and if you’re one of the first readers of the post you’ve missed a lot of the comments posted there.

Here’s a summary of your comments left on the post How Much Is Your Writing Worth, not only as my way of responding to you but also because your comments illustrate how we all are in the same boat and share the same aspirations about our writing. Although our writing may be different in genre, style and voice we all seem to have this passion for writing.

We write to move others a bit. To connect with like souls. To give to our collectivity

Wild horses couldn’t stop us from writing.

Writing is a need within to satisfy ourselves.

It feels like something’s missing if we’re not writing.

Our lives would be empty without our writing

Money has nothing to do with the desire, the passion to write, the soul satisfying way of life. We write to express our voices and tell of our truths.

Writers write to be whole…to be sane…to connect to their heart and soul

Winning the lottery might pay for new desks, a better writing machine or even allow us to write in Paris or the Swiss Alps and pay someone to do the marketing for our books but

We write because it’s fun, we learn the value of doing things in life that we love because we can’t stop doing it

Writing stimulates our minds and imagination; provides us with the satisfaction of reading a good review of our work.

It’s a way of life. It’s a passion and a hunger.

Thank you all for your comments. As always, I am grateful for your presence on my blog but also for your own blogs and being part of your writing world!

Let’s say you won the lottery

Putting the idea of the lottery aside, let’s say you don’t need to write for food and rent. Somehow that’s taken care of. Inheritance. Another job. A spouse that brings in enough. So the question becomes, if there wasn’t money (or at least its possibility) at the end of the stick 

What if your writing never gave you any financial gains. Didn’t allow you to quit your day (or night) job, travel, buy that cottage by the sea, and attend all the writing conferences you wanted to.

What is your writing worth? Do you measure it by the hours spent in front of your computer?

Do you include the research? The café lattes? The bottles of wine that you emptied in the name of inspiration?

Is the success of your writing tangled up with how much of your writing you sell?

What about those hidden costs? The time not spent with friends or family? The hours struggling over a paragraph when you could be peacefully hiking in the woods or finally going to that film festival you’ve been promising yourself to attend ?

What does writing mean to you? What would make you stop writing?