Do I have the time (and money) for it?

Remember that short list of hobbies from the Means post? Most of them have one thing in common. If you can’t figure out what that is, my wife will be happy to tell you. They’re expensive — in terms of time, money, or both. Guitars cost money. Renting an airplane is hardly cheap (I can forget about owning one at least until retirement). Proficiency at any skill takes regular hours of practice.

My son is seven months old now, and we’re in the process of buying a house. Time and money have not exactly been plentiful. I haven’t flown in three months. I practice with the church band one night a week, and other than that, I don’t get to play my guitar much. If you want to be good at something, to the point of getting paid for it, you must have the opportunity — in terms of time and money — to practice it.

Writing is cheap in terms of money. If you have a pen and paper, you’re all set. In terms of time, it’s not so cheap. You still have to practice daily, but that’s easily solved by putting said pen and paper in your pocket and pulling it out whenever you have a moment. We’ve been watching a lot of TV lately. It’s about the only form of entertainment readily available to new parents. I can offset some of the brain drainage by writing while couch-potatoing. I’m going to start finding a bench outside on my work breaks and spend a few minutes writing to give my left brain a breather. I’m writing this post out longhand on a Tablet PC from bed. There are countless opportunities to apply pen to paper, and countless things to write about during the day. If I have the motive, and the means, I would be remiss not to take the opportunities.

This blog is cheap. I registered the domain name for $9 a year. It’s hosted through an informal arrangement. I tell friends about it, get a few trackbacks, and oh, the places we’ll go. For next to nothing, I have a stage and an audience.

And if this never takes off? If — like a lot of other times in my life — I lose interest after a few weeks, quit posting, quit writing in my notebook? I’m out a few bones and posterity has a record of the whole nutty idea. And we’ve all learned something along the way.

I can live with that.

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