Monday night I was at the bar. While there I hung out a bit with Pete. Pete’s an amazing guitarist who plays with the blues band Monday nights (as well as a few other nights). He isn’t the world’s best player, but he’s really damned good. I’ve heard him play everything from Hendrix to Tom Waits and make it work.

We were outside, it was far cooler out there, and hanging out, talking. We do that sometimes, since Pete shows up randomly between 8 and 9 and doesn’t go on until 10. Anyway. I was talking about how right now my life is slightly consumed by trying to sell copies of the new book and Pete looked at me and laughed. “Book sales don’t matter, not really, do they?” he asked and I thought about it.

I mean they matter because the more books I sell the better the book is doing and the more people who read it and hopefully enjoy it and then the next book can do better and so on. But that wasn’t what Pete meant.

He went on for a bit about how he does what he loves. He plays guitar. All day. Every day. Sometimes he teaches people to play, or has a small gig somewhere, or is just practicing. It doesn’t matter. Playing that guitar is what Pete loves above all else and so he does it all the time. “There were 30 years where no one tended to pay me. I still played. You still write,” and he smirked at me again. “If this book does horribly, will you write the next one?”

“Of course,” I said before I could think about it.

“That’s just it,” he told me. We both know it can be soul crushing constant work. You’ll work harder doing what you love than any other time in your life. But it’s the good kind of work that is worth doing. And when it squeezes you dry for a bit you get up and keep going. Because it’s simply what you do.

“I go to get a gig and they ask if they can see me play and they try to make me feel like they’re paying me to play,” he said. I didn’t get it. I mean of course they paid him to play, like they pay me to write. But no. “They couldn’t afford to pay me to play. I wouldn’t ask them to. I play anyway. They pay me for my time.”

They pay him for his time.

I thought about it and he’s right. I don’t get paid for my writing. You can’t afford me. You can pay me for my time, doing this isn’t instant, but that’s about it. Because you can’t pay for my joy. No one can afford that, and, as Pete said, I wouldn’t ask someone to. It’s mine and I do it because I do it. But I’ll happily let you give me money to do it over there as opposed to over here, ya dig?

“They think, what, the pain in my playing, the blue, that comes from needing money? They don’t get pain. Life creates pain. I play it.” Damn, Pete was on fire Monday night. And I admit, I felt kinda special. Here was a guy I respected for his talent and his character, taking me into his club. The people who work it, live it, and bleed it. That felt good. Because sure, I hope like hell the new book sells. It would make it easier to move forward. But at the end of the day if it doesn’t I’m still writing the next one and the one after that.

You can’t pay me to play.