{"id":4106,"date":"2012-05-02T18:01:47","date_gmt":"2012-05-02T23:01:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/?p=4106"},"modified":"2012-05-02T19:10:16","modified_gmt":"2012-05-03T00:10:16","slug":"a-word-of-warning-about-that-writing-thing-pt-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/2012\/05\/02\/a-word-of-warning-about-that-writing-thing-pt-1\/","title":{"rendered":"A Word of Warning about that Writing Thing Pt. 1"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo: Dustin Askins (http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/dustinaskins\/)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

[I don’t know how many entries this will become…maybe three? While I don’t get too personal on the blog, for some reason, I feel compelled to write this.<\/p>\n

So I am.]<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Somewhere around 20, I traded one obsession for another.<\/p>\n

When I was 12 I taught myself how to juggle. I wasn’t content just knowing how <\/em>to juggle — I wanted to be a good <\/em>juggler. It wasn’t that I had to be the best <\/em>juggler in the world, but I had to be the best juggler I<\/em> could be…no matter what it took.<\/p>\n

The standards I held for myself were ridiculously high, and I have no doubt that had I not swapped obsessions, I’d be paying my bills as a juggler today.<\/p>\n

Juggling is a funny thing. When people hear that I juggle, they often say they’ve tried juggling and failed — or that\u00a0 they just know <\/em>they could never do it, so why even try<\/em>? Strange, then, that when it comes to writing, so many people think they can do it.<\/p>\n

It’s at least easier than juggling, right?<\/p>\n

Juggling Writing<\/strong><\/h2>\n

I always wrote stories. I was the kid who kept a journal. I tried writing movies before I ever saw a screenplay. Despite that, I didn’t really look at writing as a thing I’d try doing professionally until I was about 20. It became bigger than juggling soon after. I still juggled (still do), but I let the hours I juggled become the hours I wrote. Along the way, I found that writing well was much harder than juggling well. One obsession (juggling) was traded for the other (writing). And I became obsessed to the point of losing things:<\/p>\n