Writing is Madness

I think it takes a certain madness to actually want to be a writer.

I spend hours and hours and hours and hours just sitting with my laptop or iPad, typing away. I have whole worlds, characters, plots, romances, and more (including big dicks) floating around in my head and I obsess over them until I finally get them out and onto the page.

And while I make some money on this, it’s certainly not enough to quit my day job.

And, yet, I prioritize this … this madness over important things.

Earlier this year, I got a job offer that was a huge jump in pay over what I get at my present day job. And I turned it down. Why? Because the commute would be four times as long and I like to write in the mornings before I go to work. I would have less time to write.

(With hindsight being 20/20, it’s good I didn’t take the job. I know the person that got it and so I know the inside scoop. It’s a terrible job. Horrible.)

Still, I turned it down because I wouldn’t be able to write as much.

Then there’s this past weekend.

I’ve been obsessed with this huge story idea for weeks now. It’s been slowly percolating in the back of my mind for a couple years — it’s a sequel to two different series that I wrote way back when. This sequel would combine the two “worlds” into something new and carry it forward as something better and stronger (and sexier and with lots of big dicks). In the last few weeks, all the puzzle pieces came together and all I can do when I’m not writing is think about how much I want to write this book.

So I finally started writing this past weekend. The words flowed so naturally and beautifully. I wrote 10K over the weekend with almost no effort. I sit down and I type and I love what I’m putting together.

And in my madness, this story turned into an epic, and then an epic times two. What was supposed to be a fun book that combines two worlds (sort of like writing fanfic of my own stuff) quickly turned into a two book series that will be huge, like possibly 200K words each. By far the longest thing I’ve ever written. It’s a massive undertaking. I’m almost a little scared.

But I’m also excited.

I can’t stop thinking about it. I dream about how to make the ending absolutely perfect (even though there’s about 400,000 words between where I am now and where that ending will be). When I’m at my day job, I think about scene I’m going to write on my lunch break and I plan it all out in my head. I know exactly what I want to do for the book trailers for each of these books (and I’ve never made a book trailer before and don’t believe they’re effective, yet I desperately want to create one for each of these books). I daydream about my characters and how to make them more real to my readers — because they’re so very real to me.

It’s a madness.

I’m infected. I’m afflicted. I’m incurable. I’m hopeless.

And I love it.



Cameron D. James is a writer of gay erotica and M/M erotic romance; his latest release is Schoolboy Secrets. He is publisher at and co-founder of Deep Desires Press and a member of the Indie Erotica Collective. He lives in Canada, is always crushing on Starbucks baristas, and has two rescue cats. To learn more about Cameron, visit http://www.camerondjames.com.