in my previous life

I'm a published fiction writer. I no longer write (much), but when I did, I sold a short story to a national magazine and had another accepted and published in an anthology of stories written about an artist's paintings. All this by way of saying that when I saw this on Tumblr, I identified immediately. If you've ever been a writer, know a writer, wish you were a writer, you might think it's funny. 

I thought it was hysterical.

I found it here, on NaNoWriMo's blog.
NaNoWriMo is the acronym for
National Novel Writing Month
which is going on now, in November.
Good luck to all you crazy authors. 

My reality was a lot of the chimp, a fair amount of the plaid jacket guy, and just enough of the hunk with the quill pen to end up with a story that someone liked enough to pay me for. (full disclosure: I don't drink so never did that, and I know I'm not brilliant, but I do play a *ton* of solitaire, altho not back while I was writing heavily.)

When I was writing, I felt driven to do it. My hands itched to get to the keyboard and the story tumbled from my fingers as fast as I could type. It was like that for a handful of years. I typed and untyped and retyped like crazy, and then... one September, I just lost the urge. Gradually my days filled up with other things and pretty soon it was 6 months since I'd written a word. Now it's been 3 or 4 years, and I guess it's gone for good. 

I miss it.