writing as "work"

A strange piece of belly-button lint for me:

Why is it that every day I write something? Good, bad and indifferent, I write something and yet when I have finished, I never feel that I have done something that might qualify as "work." Never mind that it may tire me out. Never mind that the idea or series of ideas may have some value I credit. It's not work, somehow. It's as if I had done something that was plainly nothing at all.

Later, there will be dishes to wash, food to buy and cook, garbage to take out or whatever. All of that qualifies in my mind as useful work and there is some take-a-gold-star-out-of-petty-cash feeling that comes with it. I have accomplished something.

But not writing. Writing doesn't fall into that category. Real work is all the other stuff.

Better get to it.