why I don't want to get published in 2010

I am a writer. I'm not writing at the moment. (How nonsensical is that? That is the very thing I am doing.) I want to have the presence of mind to sit down and write. I want to sit down and let streams of (in)dependent clauses loop away from me without hoping I'm making sense. I want to be inspired and to be given the time and the support that allows for the fostering of that inspiration into what may one day be a work of art. I want the time to work. I want to create art. I want to write without an audience. I don't want my train of thought to be interrupted by thoughts of "I wonder who is going to or would want to read this, and what their lives are like, and what they will think and why and when, and if they will pay me." If I have deadlines, I want them to be self-imposed, and I don't want to send out a story before it's ready just because I'm supposed to be sending out stories. I don't want to send a story to 10, 100, 1000 publications hoping someone likes it. I don't want to pay to enter contests because entering contests gives you a better chance at getting published. I don't to pay someone else to read my stories. I want to workshop without discussing publication, or rules ("How to Write a Ten-Minute Play," "Perfect-length Short Stories According to Publication Type"). I want there to be no rules. I want the most pressing question someone has about my piece to be, "What's with all the bird imagery?" (Thanks, Rick Moody.)