Have you ever had to overcome writer's apathy?

Question

What follows is my own battle with this dread condition:
I am forty-five years old and have enjoyed writing since elementary school. I wrote my first novel (unpublished, of course) in my senior year in high school, and throughout my twenties I continued to put pen to paper every chance I had.
Then...I lost interest. I lost interest in writing and in a lot of other things. I became complacent and sedentary. I put on a ton of weight and waddled through each day as it came.
Then I started getting tired. Very tired. Every day was a struggle to stay awake. I was tested and discovered to have severe sleep apnea. Without realizing it, I was waking up three hundred times a night because I was slowly strangling whenever I tried to sleep. I was put on a breathing machine at night and given a choice: lose weight or die.
I have two young boys that I want to see grow up. I chose to shake myself out of my destructive lifestyle and live.
Within a year's time I lost almost a hundred pounds. I was able to breathe on my own at night.
And guess what? My creative juices broke through, an incredible torrent that propelled me back into one of my greatest passions in life: writing.
That was four years ago. Since then I've written three novels (none published...yet) and I am currently working on my fourth. In between I write short stories by the score. 
I continue to eat right and exercise...I don't dare discontinue that.
That's how I overcame writer's apathy. Now let's hear from all of you.

&lt;3Emm · Accepted Answer

Very inspirational story and congratulations on the weight loss and writing! 

I'm 15 and have written 2 books, sending one to a few publishing companies soon (please keep your fingers crossed for me!) While writing my first book I was constantly getting stuck but finally pushed through it. I guess it was just the drive to want to finish my work and I gave myself a time limit and it was running awfully short haha.

Good luck with your publishing; I hope all goes well for you and your family.=]

Lynci · Answer

I've lived an entirely different from yours (not surprisingly since I am not you!), having never married, had children, nor gained weight.  What we have in common is that I am an insatiable writer.  I won a prize (candy bar!) in fourth grade for having written the best story -- about a little Bolivian girl who found a baby in a large jar!  Anyway, my dream was always to write a novel which would be published.  One day years ago I read a sentence in a book owned by my sister which inspired in me an entire plot for a story that seemed to me to be the one  I was destined to write.  Since that "enlightenment" transpired in the distant past, the route from its inception to the eventual publication of the resultant novel was long and convoluted, and, I must confess, ultimately, I self-published through Xlibris my novel (an esoteric "memoir" -- or roman a clef -- of the lost Continent of Atlantis).  I was and am aware that such publications are disdained by the legitimate publishing community, but I did not care as I desired beyond all else for my story to exist as a published volume and cared not to subject it or myself to the rejections which would surely have resulted from my attempts to interest a publishing company in actually paying me to publish it!  Since publishing that original novel, I've written a sequel which I've also published via Xlibris.  I have no regrets as my dream is realized because my novels exist in the annuls of American publishing.  I am currently aspiring to create the third book in the trilogy but am yet to "receive" its concept.  (When I write, I feel often as if my magical stories are being revealed to me, arriving upon the Stream of Cosmic Consciousness!)  Like you, I love writing and live to do so.  You haven't asked for advice, but I want to encourage you never to abandon your writing dream.  I admire you for all you've done to improve your health and to prolong your life.  I never feel apathetic about writing (or anything else in life!)  Be persistent; eventually, one way or another, you will attain triumph!  Good luck!

godluvsgoons · Answer

so you want to be a writer?     
by Charles Bukowski  

 
if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.


if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.

don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

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Have you ever had to overcome writer's apathy?

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