I just saw James Kochalka’s strip for yesterday (the first two panels appear above) and it completely clicked with me. His view on his art/storytelling is exactly the same way I see writing. Being a writing isn’t about being published or collecting a paycheck (though those things are very nice). A writer is someone who writes because they have to.

What happens is you get like a bazillion ideas, most of them really bad or really silly. But then out of nowhere you get a good idea and it kinda makes a nest in your brain. The idea lives in that nests and grows and grows and grows. It starts to drive you crazy and eats up all your other thoughts so that sometimes its hard to focus on anything but that idea.

So the only way to get rid of the idea is to write it out. Of course it’s a vicious cycle because right around the time you nearly clear the idea out of your head, another good idea forms a nest and festers until you sit down and write it out too.