Writer's High

I realized something this week.  I love the act of writing more than I love the idea of getting published. 

I love creating characters that find themselves in the middle of difficult situations that only I have control over.  I love writing first drafts, but I equally enjoy editing my first drafts into something better, transforming them with the perfect word or dialogue, playing with a scene until it's just right, even if it's not what I originally intended. 

How lucky are we to have found our passion, the thing that we love to do?  I say 'we' because I know I'm not alone.

To have such a supportive community of writers is more than I planned on when I began writing.  I expected to do this thing alone; and I expected to love it less.  I accepted the possibility that I would fail, that this was something I wouldn't be able to do, that I would give up on it if I wasn't immediately successful. 

But this is who I am.  This is who I was as a child with an overactive imagination and a love for stories, as a teen who escaped into literature, as an adult that loves to read to her babies before bed but prefers to make up stories on the fly. 

It would be wonderful if I could make enough money from writing to pay for college for my kids or buy the farmhouse of my dreams (and pay a worker to do the work my husband obviously doesn't want to do).  If monetary success happens, that will be fantastic, but for now I am satisfied with the pleasure that comes from writing one chapter at a time, from creating a thousand words that didn't exist yesterday. 

Yes, I had way too much coffee today and an unusual abundance of sleep last night, which may be responsible for my afternoon euphoria.  Maybe I have writer's high, sort of like runner's high but different - an uncontrolled optimism after having written a chapter I love. 

Do you feel this way too?  Do you love the act of writing enough that you would do it without pay?  Do you get a writer's high after writing or editing a difficult chapter?