One of my professors, way back when, once gave this advice to the young writers & poets in his class: (I paraphase) ‘take courses in biology, not writing.’ If we had all taken his advice, he would have been out of a job. I wonder sometimes if teaching writing isn’t a good way to avoid writing itself.
Full-time teaching of any sort is exhausting – you are onstage for six hours, giving the performance of a lifetime, five days a week. When I talk to writers’ groups, I am energy personafied during and coma personafied after – however, I have been a writer in the eyes of other writers for that time. A sense of fulfillment in itself.
When I am writing – which, from the title of this blog, you may gather is a constant enterprise – I read very little that is not research material. My current research concerns early Welsh music. Music also happens to be a favorite pastime, along with photography, dance, gardening, astronomy, cultural history of the early middle ages as well as virtually any information about Wales, its culture and history, the Welsh language. Anthropology, sociology, psychology – all essential areas of study for the writer. Life as we know it.