By guest blogger Camille Benson

What makes me a writer? Passion makes me a writer. The passion of hatred! I hate writing. It challenges me. Writing means I have to live up to my own expectations, which is not the way to live a contented life.

Writing means I have to be creative when I would rather be lazy. Writing means I have something nagging at me after a long week at work, especially when I’d rather just have a normal weekend like people who don’t write.

The passion of hatred turns to love and excitement once I get going with a story or even a complaint in my journal. I think, “What took me so long? Why didn’t I just bite the bullet and write this before?”

But it’s like that phenomenon new mothers report about their labor pains: When you’re in the delivery room you swear you’re NEVER gonna have sex again in your entire LIFE because of the pain you’re going through right that minute. But a few days after the birth you go into amnesia. You go home and do it all over again and you get yourself pregnant and you wind up in that delivery room screaming, “Never again!”

Except with writing it’s the other way around. I get amnesia about how much I enjoyed it the last time. All I know is what a chore it looms up as when I’m contemplating doing it. A weariness comes over me and I feel convinced I have nothing to say.

I’m a writer because I complain about writing.

I’m a writer because somebody gave me an assignment to begin two sentences with the words “I am” and I coughed up.

Camille’s favorite

CAMILLE BENSON is an admin assistant in a non-profit organization. She is a cat lover and has a particular fondness for Siamese cats and orange tabbies. Camille has been a student of the Fear of Writing Online Course.