This question has been discussed to death, but it’s always fun. Angela, an old member long absent, says, “I've been struggling with the ‘what's the point of devoting so much time to writing when no one will ever read it’ angst that I think most writers experience from time to time.”

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I started writing to entertain myself, a sort of word game. I came up with a story and it grew and grew. I am not an outliner, and I wanted to see how the story shakes loose. I still want to see how it works out. I still don’t know how it’s going to end. I’ve been on my big work for thirty years, and the goal post keeps moving away from me.

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As for my verse, that really is an exercise in word-smithery. Some people love crossword puzzles, I love to make rhymes. It’s a challenge: Can I tell a solid story, with fresh pairings and original solutions? The two pieces of verse I have up here are nothing compared to my five thousand word take on Cinderella. Of all my versification, that is probably the piece I am most proud of.

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Two things stop me from posting it. 1. My Quark app has corrupted and I am unable to open the file. I have retrieved a good portion of it by having it opened and resaved at work, but I am still missing the ending. I have to reinstall Quark. Then, I haven’t looked at it for at least five or six years, I know I will need to tinker with it. 2. It is so intricate, full of entire paragraphs of single run-on sentence momentum, that it will elicit howls. And, as with everything I produce, I am committed to my screwball structure and find it as delightful as it could be. And, this is vital with verse, it's a riot to read aloud.

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And so, no, the thought that my stuff may never be widely read does not deter me. I write for personal enjoyment. I have a ton of fun, when it’s working. I do a lot of obsessing over difficult passages also. I give my rhyming dictionary a real workout. Fair warning: In a pinch, I make up my own words.* I do follow the script, stepsisters, ball, slipper, I do not take the seed idea off into the ether like I do in Sly! But it's an extravagant world you've not been shown before, in sync with my extravagant verse. 

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* The thing could probably do with a few footnotes.

--edited by Mimi Speike on 9/19/2015, 2:32 PM--

"What the hell", indeed! A good topic though, Mimi. Especially for those of us post-50 years of age who keep pushing the pen 'cross paper/depressing keyboard keys/speaking into tape recorders as twilight approaches.

BRIEFLY, BRUTALLY: depending on whose statistics you reference, only 2% - 5% of publishing writers make their living from writing fiction. What are the reasons to continue writing fiction, then? Speaking only for myself (and in no particular order) my top ten reasons are:

1.   I am compelled to do it.  

2.   I write to save my sanity and calm that organ ceaselessly monkey-chattering away inside the "bone housing maelstroms". As Ray Bradbury says: If you're a writer, you must write yourself sane. When I don't write I feel vaguely unsettled and nauseous, nerve-jangled and angry, peevish and resentful, churlish and depressed.   

3.   I write to discover what I actually think and feel.    

4.   I am never more myself than when I write, so I write in response to Plato's dictum: "know thyself".   

5. Writing allows you to better appreciate the hard work and consummate skills of "The Greats". After all, who better understands and appreciates music—the musician, or the stereo owner?    

6.   It's the hardest work you'll ever do—therefore, the most satisfying.    

7.   I like the tactile feel of fingertips on keyboard and the clack-clack clickety-clack sounds my keyboard makes. Never underestimate the love an artist has for his instrument, or the concomitant impact such technical idolatry will have on his or her continued enthusiasm for the work. Do you think there are any great guitarists who are indifferent to guitars; accomplished painters indifferent to canvas, brushes and paints?  

 8.   I write for recognition.

 9.   I write for money.

10.  I write to connect with others, to let them know that they are not alone. 

I hope others chime in here, Mimi. Let's hope this thread doesn't become yet another on Book Country with 5,000 drive-bys and four posters . . .

--edited by Carl E. Reed on 9/20/2015, 1:34 PM--

Awesome question, Mimi.

As Carl says, I write because I'm compelled to. I've been making up stories since I was young. My penmanship back then was atrocious, and to this day I can't make out those early-year scribbles, but I must enjoy writing since I'm still scribbling away.

I write because I love telling stories. I write because it gives me pleasure. Even if I never sell a book, I'll continue to write, simply because I can't stop. I might try to walk away, but I'll always end up going back to it.

People might not enjoy what I write, and that's okay. So long as I'm soothing my creative impulse.

Amber

I think the answer must be: because I can't not write. To write with the goal of being read, this is a recipe for disappointment. 

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I write for myself, and I see nothing wrong with that. My editor told me, your style says to your reader, I don't care if you like this or not. I see nothing wrong with that. I am writing what I would love to read, were I to stumble across it. For me, the joy is in the creation, not in the money made off it.

--edited by Mimi Speike on 9/19/2015, 7:50 PM--

Yes, Mimi. I've forgotten now who said it (John Garder? John Irving? Dean Koontz? Stephen King?) but an earnest graduate student once approached a veteran best-selling author and begged them to render a verdict on their own fledgling writing efforts.  

STUDENT: "Do you think I have what it takes to be a writer?"

FAMOUS AUTHOR: "I don't know; do you like sentences?"

Oops. I just rewrote that. I read, long ago, someone, a teacher probably, say something like, I want to be a writer means nothing. Loads of folks say that. If you can say, I love words, I love language, that's what makes you a writer. You have to be willing to do the drudge work, to hone your skills.

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In case this topic doesn't turn members on, I have an alternative. Working on a book last night at work, I found a cover blurb for a history of the Grateful Dead: Combines solid research and move-along readability. What, in your opinion, is move-along readability? I reckon that a popular-fiction reader would say it's the story. I say it's style, with a great story a plus. But I don't need a great story, or any story really, to adore a book. Maybe one of the reasons my genre of choice is literary fiction.

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I feel  like a fraud when I talk about Sly in terms of a plot. I have no plot. Things happen, but to call it all a plot, I have to be in a P.T. Barnum mood, putting one over on the gullible public. I'm screwing around. Move it along? Tone down the flamboyant language? Can the delicious, devious footnotes? Get my little guy over to England, have him save the queen's ass and be done with it? Firstly, why? This world of mine is so much fun, I want to explore it. Secondly, I don't have it in me to play it straight. 

--edited by Mimi Speike on 9/19/2015, 11:28 PM--

I write because I enjoy the process of writing and I like stories. I was at a local writers' event last week and I told one of the panel members that I'm working on a novel, but I don't look forward to finishing it. The panel member was taken aback. I told her I like the story. When I finish, I'll have to find something else to do, or find another story.

I don't expect to make any real money at this. I have sold short stories and magazine articles to small circulation periodicals, and had two short story collections published by a small traditional publisher. I have readers from Hawaii to Finland, but not very many of them. I do get good comments from my readers, and some of them are strangers too, not just family members and friends. It's nice to have my writing noticed.

Writing is a solitary pursuit, and I like that. I can lose myself in a story, at least for a little while, like I can lose myself in fly fishing, or in training a horse for harness work. It's good to have something to be lost in, where being lost is the reward.  

Move along readability is the elegant language, the turn of the phrase that keeps up our wonder and interest from page to page. But we also need action. Something has to happen. I feel cheated when I read a "story" that is beautifully written, but it's just a description of scenery and characters, and nothing happens. 

@Carl.   Yes! I really do like sentences.  That might be the best reason I've ever heard given to this pernicious question.

Actually, I agree with most of your reasons.  I realize I chimed in with LeGuin in having no use for writing that is about 'self-discovery' or any such thing, but it is perfectly fine if it serves that purpose for the writer (and it clearly does for all of us to some extent.)  The key thing is not letting all that personal stuff clutter up a good narrative, something I've never seen you do. 

I'm also fine with those for whom writing is therapy, as long as they don't expect me to attend their sessions or hear about their diagnosis.

@Atthys: Well said! And thank you.

PS. Ray Bradbury advised, "Write yourself sane", but he said this in the full expectation that skilled writers would use the tools in their respective toolboxes to craft aesthetically-accomplished writing accessible to a wide audience, not book-length stream-of-consciousness bitch sessions or page-bound marathons of inert, over-intellectualized navel gazing. 

--edited by Carl E. Reed on 12/2/2015, 7:20 PM--

Carl, your comment reminds me of a quote I saw recently and loved:

"If people cannot write well, they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, then others will do their thinking for them." —George Orwell

@Lucy: Great quote of Orwell's! And exactly right.  

PS. Although never directly quoted (or called out via citation or footnote) in my published science-fiction farce, A Matter of Displacement (excerpt below), this insight of Orwell's informs part of the subtext for Lord Commander Vr'beikl's smug mockery and subtle, honeyed taunting of those he considers his intellectual and racial inferiors. In a fascistic totalitarian state (secular or theocratic) you will be TOLD the proper opinions to hold on any given subject, including the most rarefied of religio-philosophical ones. 

..........................................................

Minutes later Vr’beikl sat in one of the folding chairs that littered the rec room, studying the chessboard on the table before him. After a moment’s pause he reached out a spindly, meticulously-manicured hand and moved his queen’s hate-priest to King’s Basilisk six. “No, I don’t think you understand the concept of beauty.” He smacked his blue-veined lips in satisfaction at the move, then raised large, luminous golden orbs to fix on Hrangar’s own. “How could you? After all, you’re a member of a subordinate race and lower social order. Your kind wouldn’t understand such a rarefied aesthetic.”

Hrangar grunted. “Me understand beauty well enough, effete no-fur meat.” The Gurq’s voice was level but his hackles rose, erupting around his two-rank-bar collar in a prickle of glossy brown fur. He wore the maroon-and-gray jumpsuit of Engineering, crossed wrenches on the right breast. “Me understand beauty better you! All ways; any day.” He slid his king’s bolt marauder to Queen’s Ghost Wasp three to threaten Vr’beikl’s archon, the force-gripper LED on his paw winking red.

Vr’beikl chuckled, pleased that he’d riled his chief engineer so easily. It pulled his head out of the game. As for the Gurq’s insult—a grievous breach of military discipline at any other time (punishable by whipping with a venomous tendril snapped from the thorax of a Gax puke-u, the forced reciting of the armed forces loyalty oath while standing at ramrod attention and/or confinement to quarters on minimal rations)—this he dismissed with a magnanimous wave of the hand. An angry chess player was a poor chess player; the game from here on out would be an infant pummel. Besides, he encouraged an atmosphere of collegial informality in the rec room. It was good for morale. Relaxation of discipline enabled the men to get to know each other better. Within limits, of course. He still forbid, in strict accordance with naval regulations, more than four-to-six seconds of homoerotic clenching, a brawl lasting longer than three minutes or impulsive buggery of superiors.

“Bold move,” he said, shifting in the chair with a silken whisper of his black commander’s robe.

“Thank you,” said Hrangar.

“I said it was a bold move; I didn’t say it was a good one.” Vr’beikl kept his eyes on the chessboard as he asked, “Tell me, dog: Is time an arrow, or a circle?”

“Circle.”  

“No hesitation. How can you be so certain?”

“Because you ask same question again and again,” said Hrangar.

Vr’beikl’s regal countenance betrayed guarded amusement. “And your definition of beauty?”

Hrangar looked wary. “Back to that?”

“Indulge me.”

“Must give same answer as Lord Commander?”

“Well, no-o . . .” said Vr’beikl.

“Ha! Is easy then. Beauty is moon mist and rainbows. Bright, pretty colors. Cool water and marrow-rich bone. Shapely female Gurq.”

“So beauty is a succession of concrete nouns?” queried Vr’beikl. 

“Bloody battle saints of bitch-frenzied Balkon! Can’t you focus on the game and leave the philosophical interrogation for temple exams?” Rusaquii executed alternate-leg front kicks with four of his six segmented legs, followed by a sequence of rapid-fire claw-chops flowing smoothly into high, low and middle blocks. The Scrimkeesh’s whip-thin antennae and saliva-glistening mandibles bobbed as he finished the tenth repetition of the kata, “Devil Hands of the Wolf Lobster”. The commissar had stripped off his uniform upon entering Officer Quarters and now wore only the traditional Scrimkeesh undergarment of rubber-coated steel. He reached the bulkhead wall, pivoted smoothly into a reverse downward block followed by dual throat-level claw stabs and began another repetition of the kata. “This is the rec room, not a sophist podium at a Gibble-hoc.”  

--edited by Carl E. Reed on 12/2/2015, 8:08 PM--

"So beauty is a succession of concrete nouns?"  heh heh.  Love that. 

I admit, when an author starts talking about how their novel was a journey of self discovery or an honest examination of their own life or problems, I usually lose interest fast.  Honesty and self discovery are wonderful things, but they have very little to do with good writing.  As an underpinning of the narrative, sure, but I'm suspicious of any writing that seems satisfied with putting feelings on a page.  Good writing can feel like journaling, but there better be something else going on, or it's going to be vapid and tiresome. 

Which is why I was so reticent to start (years ago, now) writing in first person. Young Adult fans in particular seem to expect first person narrative, and I didn't like very much of it, to be honest (though there are wonderful exceptions, of course.)  It felt like a formulaic short cut. If the writing was sloppy and maudlin and obvious, well, it was some kid's diary, so how good could it be? 

"My name is Janie. I have long brown hair that usually droops down to cover my face. I eat dirt sometimes."   

So alright, I'm being silly, but it does feel that way sometimes.  

I suppose I should admit that the three books of mine that were accepted for publication are all in first person. While I love those books and feel like the choice was perfectly appropriate, that does feel like a confession. But first-person narrative doesn't have to be tiresome diary scribbling. In some places, it's exactly the right choice. But please, a little art, a little artifice. Make the reader work at it a bit.  Keep us guessing. I don't want to overstate it but, most of the time, we shouldn't be entirely sure about the motivation and honesty of the narrator, at least at first. In real life, we don't get to know people all in one go; it takes time.  And that is one of life's greatest fascinations. 

On Friday morning I woke up dreaming the powerful climatic scene for a short story I'm working on, and on my commute to the day job I thought about the sentence structures and the sounds of the words that I would use to create the tension and the impact of the scene. I like to do this thing and I can't imagine not doing it.

But the question was "why do we write?" I write for the fame and glory, for the recognition I receive when I go out in public, for the fact that my money is no good in the bars in town; everyone wants to pay for my Brandy Manhattans, for the crowds paying rapt attention at my readings. And oh yes, for the money. It's about the money. Of course some of those things are still a fiction. Okay, they're all still a fiction. Maybe I should write a story about that. 

@Perry: I've had that similar experience of dreaming sentences and waking up in full-on editor mode: hyper-critical and preternaturally alert, head full of words and stage blocking for troublesome characters, mouth sounding aloud the incantatory and somehow eldritch syllables ('cause night-gained through a sojourn through weirdling realms of oneiric vision) that press for immediate arrangement in cunning order upon the page. This usually happens after an intense, hours-long marathon session of extended reading the day before.

Love the specificity of your "success daydream", BTW: Everyone clamoring to pay for those "Brandy Manhattans". Heh! 

PS. Book Country's built-in spell checker does not recognize the words incantatory, eldritch, weirdling or oneiric. How curious . . . 

--edited by Carl E. Reed on 12/13/2015, 5:54 PM--

I write with a 0.7mm pencil.

Hand writing the 1st draft is what works for me. 

I write for me, a cathartic process. I love when though and vision culminate in the written word.

Less obcession and more thought.

Pened some 40 some books to date most some 200 pages. I write.

Dravid

I write therefore I am. (a cathartic process)