Why write?
That nagging question’s been popping into my head for a long time. A really long time. I mean, I doubt there are many who write fiction for the money. If you don’t believe me, check out Seth Harwood’s tell-all podcast, The Truth in which he explains the numbers behind his blockbuster novel Jack Wakes Up. Go ahead, give it a listen. I’ll wait……
You’re back? what did you think? Pretty obvious that money’s not a driving force, isn’t it? So why do it?
Paulo Coelho had an interesting observation. To paraphrase, he surmised that writers write in order to be read. That’s pretty obvious when taken at face value. But dig deeper and more meaning begins to tumble out of Coelho’s comment. Writers, I think, want to exercise self-expression, want to make a contribution, want to share opinions and feelings, and writers want to, I believe, grab their readers’ attention. Depending on their motives, writers want readers to learn, to laugh, to cry or to just ponder a previously undiscovered premise.
That last one is my motive for putting my book together (although getting people laughing would be pretty cool too). Oh, and there’s one other reason. I believe that when any of us tries something new, a door opens. Where that door leads is, of course, unknown–a complete mystery. But once it opens, it’s then our duty to walk through and find out what’s waiting on the other side.
And that’s something I can hardly wait for.
[...] is, uh, interesting. In a prior post, I explored what it was that made writers write. In that piece, I suggested money wasn’t even [...]