All of which led me to ponder the question: why do writers write?
And, more pertinently, are those reasons rational or based on self-delusion?
Before I went off to study for my degree, I had a summer job in a frozen pizza factory. It was grim. What helped sustain me through those 6am-2pm shifts were daydreams about my first book becoming a critically-lauded best-seller.
I finished that first book the very last night before I set off for three years of under-graduate education. It probably goes without saying that it did not become a critically-lauded best-seller.
Sixteen years later, I'm telling my friend about this Bubblecow article that quotes how the median earnings of a writer in the UK in 2008 came to £4,000 a year. I suggested that her friend's choice to give up his job to be a full-time writer was perhaps somewhat ill-advised.
I do know of one writer who gave up his job, sat down at his word processor with the express intent of writing a bestseller and duly did so, but to hold up the example of Lee Child is to ignore the millions of other writers who failed.
This is not to say that writing for fame and fortune is wrong. What's wrong is to miscalculate the odds of success. It's also wrong to simply assume that fame and fortune is a good thing.
'Stumbling upon Happiness' is a book by Daniel Gilbert that explores how innately bad we are predicting what will make us happy. Say that you did become a millionaire author. You buy the house, the car, that diamond-encrusted shitzu you've always wanted, how much happier will those things make you. Will that added happiness still linger a year later? Will those high-price possessions give you a nice warm feeling while you're sitting on a toilet, suffering with a head cold, in an antiseptic hotel room somewhere in the middle of your latest book-signing tour?
Will you be happy about the fact that you can no longer reply personally to the thousands of fan letters you get? What if you get so famous, the paparazzi start raiding your bins and tapping your phones?
Fortunately, happiness doesn't correlate with money or renown.
Even so, you don't need to make millions to be a successful author. Perhaps being read - getting your story out there - is the reason for writing. After all, hearing from someone who enjoyed your work is a great experience.
But... is it better to have two people say it's great instead of one? Does the satisfaction scale with numbers? Is 5000 fans better than 500? Does it matter if there are ten people who hate the book for every one person who loves it? Does matter if you're read by ten million, but never hear from any of them?
Is the real wish of those who want to be read simply that people keep saying to them 'you're great'? So it's not really a writing thing, it's an ego thing.
At this point, I'll admit that to some extent I write both to achieve fame and fortune and so people will tell me I'm great. I just try to be honest with myself about the facts. I know the odds of the success are slim and the ego thing means I'm self-serving and shallow. That's okay. Mainly because I'm great even when people fail to notice.
Still, there is another reason why I write and this reason is why I could not understand why someone would give up writing. For me, it's what makes fame and fortune and being read and being complimented inconsequential by comparison.
I saw Inception for the second time yesterday and there's a scene that sums it up quite nicely. Ellen Page's character Ariadne has been approached to be the architect for a dream. She walks away after her first experience of being an architect, but later...
Arthur: Cobb said you'd be back.And that, for me, is reason enough to write. But what about you. Why do you write?
Ariadne: I tried not to come, but...
Arthur: But there's nothing quite like it.
Ariadne: It's just pure creation.
6 comments:
I write because I can't not.
I write for the same reason I read: because I'm trying to figure life out. I put my conclusions down on paper, rework them, put them down again, decide that I have figured it out, send the wisdom out to the world, decide that I have gotten it all wrong, start over, and figure it out again.
The writers whom I know say that they write because they HAVE to. The stories simply won't let them alone. As Pyotr Tchaikovski once complained "The music in my head won't stop!"
The characters can easily take on lives of their own, which means they may force you to tell their stories and may even take over their own destinies. How this is possible I really don't know but I am assured that this may happen.
I would say keep on writing just because you do it so well; which may mean you were born to do it.
I've said it before I think, but at the writing industries conference I was surprised by the number of people who asked 'but how do I make money doing x'. So few people really make their living writing full time that to do it for any reason than love of the act itself seems crazy. All the rest is nice, but not reliable.
Even with the reviewing, I do it because I love to talk about books. I started out just talking to myself and if I end up the same way I will still keep doing it.
Agreed: you write despite the rejection, discouragement, sneering, depression and small rewards. You write though you have to steal time from your job, your friends, your family, your fun. You write because what you have inside you has to get out.
My answer is the same as Stephen King's, "What makes you think I have a choice?"
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