However, have you ever thought to ask a Civil War Era soldier or merchant about being a workaholic? How about a Turn of the Century farmer? Or a Peasant from the Feudal Age?

Certainly things can be overboard, but I don’t think a strong work ethic or wanting to do something you love more often is a bad thing. I indeed feel guilty wasting an entire weekend playing a computer game. I’ve received no tangible benefit at all, and look at all the writing/cleaning/organizing/filing/lesson-planning/stuff I could have gotten done!

Now, on the other hand, my brother is a confirmed “workaholic,” yet he also has the Midas Touch; I wonder if the two are related?

Now that I’ve taken the time to actually read the comments (um, after not reading them the other day because I felt like I should be writing instead) I have to agree with, well, everyone. Being busy or enjoying one’s work isn’t the same as being a workaholic.

And yes, some of these questions are definitely “Well, duh” answers for writers. Artists in general, really.

And now, I’ve got work to do.

But yeah, I suffer from what my mother has (a very long time ago, when I was a kid) dubbed my “writing virus” – and when I get afflicted by that I simply dive into another world and “reality” be damned. My husband has to “wake me up” to eat…

Would I swap it for anything else…? Not in a million years….

Since I put 150% into anything I do, I have a low burn out threshold. If I work myself into the ground today, how am I going to do this wonderful job in twenty years?

Margaret: I think you’re right to some degree, but the questions can be understood in such a way that they can apply to writers.

For example, I interpret “Do you take complete responsibility for the outcome of your work efforts?” to mean “Do you credit/blame yourself for the success or lack thereof of your book?” When there are so many factors in a book’s sales, we can’t take all of that on ourselves.

Healthy attitude: I’ve written the best book I could, did a reasonable amount of promotion, and the rest (distribution, marketing budget, weather during release week) is out of my control.

Workaholic attitude: If my sales suck, it’s my fault because I should’ve written a better book. If ONLY I’d polished those action scenes four or five more times! Ooh, it’s one minute past the hour, time to check my Amazon ranking.

Or how about this question: “Do you take complete responsibility for the outcome of your work efforts?” Writers must do this! Who else is going to take responsibility, the cat?

I think that this list might apply to a 9-5 person who works for a corporation, but not for the self-employed and especially not for writers.

I run my own freelance business that pays the bills in addition to writing novels, so I work ALL the time. Even when I exercise, I’m cajoling my subconscious into plotting. Don’t ask.

But a lot of writing is daydreaming. Sometimes my husband is like, you work too much, you’re stressed and you don’t even know. But it seems like a lot of my work is sitting and thinking. How can that be stressful? But, who knows.

You say:
“If they have a good writing day, they feel bad because they’ve ignored e-mail, and vice versa.” So true! *G*

Like Alice, the faster you run, the less you keep up. Calgon, take me away! Literally. Please. Okay, back to typing.

Andrea: I didn’t think you were, but I suddenly realized others out there might think I was being whiny (God forbid!). But I know what you mean–I used to be bewildered (still am, actually) at people who will throw themselves into a 9-5 job working for The Man, and yet when I’m my own boss, I exhibit the same behaviors.

Hmm, I wonder if this is an American phenomenon. Do French and Swedish freelance writers take 8 weeks of vacation like their employed-and-salaried counterparts?