Why I Write....a few thoughts

To put it at its simplest, I write because I like to wirte. I love creative pursuits like wirting, photography, and art. I love to write fantasy because it offers great creative freedom. I love inventing new worlds.
Sure, everyone loves to make money, but I don't believe in wirting for money alone. I believe in writing for the pleasure of writing and hopefully the big $$$$ will follow someday soon.

I used to enjoy writing like it was a hobby. However, after writing 3 books it's become a hard job I have to discipline myself to every day.

For me, the writing is enjoyable. At least when I have a firm idea for the story. The work begins when I rewrite, edit, polish, rewrite, and edit again! When I have to force myself to write, it usually comes out wrong and requires more rewriting. I think I understand why so many successful authors use outlines!

Guess I'm different.

I find writing the book hard work. My first one was a breeze, but then, even though I'd taken a class and had edited other writers' work, I was totally ignorant of the process, the craft and techniques. Now, what I find enjoyable is the editing process, shaping, smoothing, arranging and rearranging to the best effect.

Writing is enjoyable when the story moves along easily. When it stalls, it becomes hard work and a pain in the !!!!

I used to stall all the time, Jenny, and it was painful. I no longer have that problem. But I believe the discussion about plotting is on another thread.

Jenny wrote:

Writing is enjoyable when the story moves along easily. When it stalls, it becomes hard work and a pain in the !!!!

I find the best solution is to let the story flow naturally. Sometimes I have to let my story set for a few days to gather my thoughts. I Find that trying to "force" the flow of the story only serves to make writer's block worse.

Brenda Hill wrote:

Guess I'm different.

I find writing the book hard work. My first one was a breeze, but then, even though I'd taken a class and had edited other writers' work, I was totally ignorant of the process, the craft and techniques. Now, what I find enjoyable is the editing process, shaping, smoothing, arranging and rearranging to the best effect.

Yes, writing is hard work. It took me over 150 hours to write, edit, and proofread my first book, but hard work does not mean it is unfun or unenjoyable. Like I said, I write for the enjoyment of it. Many things worth doing are hard work.

Many people write for the enjoyment, and that's great. Should I call you Gordon?

I'd hate to tell how long my first book took me to write.

Well, okay, since you twisted my arm and threatened to take the chocolate away, I spent at least five years on my first one.

Oh, I tried after the first year to get it published. Took more classes, went to conferences, eagerly listening to agents and acquiring editors reveal what they look for, sure my book was about to be the next bestseller. I even snagged an agent's interest after sweating in the hallway waiting for my appointment. "Send it," she told me, and even gave me a different address so it would get right to her. I flew home, my head in the clouds.

That was my first big disappointing lesson on craft. Many years later, I still have her letter.

"You write well," she wrote, and my heart soared. "But the structure is all wrong."

Tears flowing, I sank to the floor. What did she mean, 'structure?' I'd owned a bookstore, talked and critiqued other authors' manuscripts, read since I was kneehigh to a grasshopper.

STRUCTURE? That started me on another quest to learn. Almost everything I've learned came from an agent telling me I wasn't doing what was needed. Then I'd take a class, several classes, on it, trying to understand.

So yeah, writing is hard work, but I love it. I can't NOT write.

I've attended a couple of conferences, as well as a weekly writers' group, and have completed an Open University Course in Creative Writing, yet still feel I have a great deal to learn. Hopefully, each manuscript I produce will be better than it's predecessor.

Yes, writing is hard work, but like you Brenda, I love it and am miserable if I'm not plotting and plugging away at the keyboard.

Oh, Jenny, if I'd had any idea when I began that it would take so long to learn the craft, I'm not sure I would've stuck with it. I was sooo self-assured.

Talk about babe in the woods.

Now I can't not write. Even when I'm doing something that's supposed to be fun, I'm thinking about the latest scene and wondering, if I changed this or that, if it would flow better.

Think there's a Writers' Anonymous around?

Brenda I think that's an occupational hazard isn't it - getting completely absorbed in your work and not being able to help it!? I remember that when I studied French I would speak it perfectly in my dreams. When I was in the army I used to dream stuff too -- funny I have never dreamed about writing, even though I sometimes do get amazing clarity about things just as I drift off - hence the notebook on the nightstand and a bunch of pens behind it. I did, however, come across this...

Amazing, Pam. Can't believe it. Well, yes I can! Thanks for showing it to me.

Hi Brenda,

You will find the code for the logo here if you would like to add it to your web site:

http://www.sendcoffee.com/dog-o-matic/essays/writers.html

That's so cool, Shelagh. Thanks.

Brenda Hill wrote:

That was my first big disappointing lesson on craft. Many years later, I still have her letter.

"You write well," she wrote, and my heart soared. "But the structure is all wrong."

Tears flowing, I sank to the floor. What did she mean, 'structure?' I'd owned a bookstore, talked and critiqued other authors' manuscripts, read since I was kneehigh to a grasshopper.

STRUCTURE? That started me on another quest to learn. Almost everything I've learned came from an agent telling me I wasn't doing what was needed. Then I'd take a class, several classes, on it, trying to understand.

So yeah, writing is hard work, but I love it. I can't NOT write.

You see Brenda, this is the problem of the written word with no body language to help you to understand what she meant when she wrote: "You write well but the structure is all wrong."

Your natural response was to question your work and, whatever was wrong with it, you were prepared to fix it. The way you interpreted the sentence was very much influenced by the emotional attachment to your work.

If I had received that response, my reaction would have been very different. Instead of looking for cures to fix my work, I would accept that I didn't write in a way that was acceptable to this agent.

I was given some excellent advice from a London agent, Robin Wade, who said that you should never change a mauscript based on the reasons given for the rejection BUT if an agent accepts your work, you should be willing to make all the changes asked of you. He said that changing things to suit someone who didn't like it would not necessarily make it acceptable to someone else.

In truth, the agent probably liked your ideas but felt that the way you expressed those ideas would be difficult for her to sell to a publisher. That's what it's all about. Well-written, badly written -- it's all the same to an agent. However, they instinctively know if a manuscript can be knocked into the kind of shape that will SELL. It's all about selling. Well, no surprises there!

"not the right structure" "doesn't fit our list" " I liked it but I didn't love it" -- these are all phrases used by agents to say no. They never say no; their job depends upon new talent coming through and it would be counter-productive to discourage writers. So they don't. They just don't. But they have to find ways of saying no -- not the right structure is one of them.

Keep on writing and doing the thing you love.

Yes, I understand, Shelagh, but I knew, from previous studies, that stories have a certain structure. Aristotle taught the story arc in the three acts and I wanted to learn not only the acts but the job of each act. They’re all techniques to keep the reader interested. The only stories without structure are literary. I wanted to learn the commercial structure as that was what I was writing.

Today’s writers must know basic structure, which can be adapted to any genre or the reader will not experience the ephinany and emotional resolution at the end. Popular novels and movies, such as Cinderella, Star Wars, Jaws, Master and Commander, and even my favorite Western, The Searchers with John Wayne, all follow the structure and that’s what I needed to learn. Now I teach it to my students and once they get it, we have fun in class taking movies or books apart.

Suspense was a technique another agent said I was lacking. I didn’t understand, as I’d submitted a synopsis along with the chapters. Well of course there was no suspense, I reasoned; she knew how the story progressed. However, it wasn’t until years and many classes later that I finally realized what she meant. It’s the difference between someone telling a story where the audience yawns, shuffles their feet, and another storyteller keeping the audience on the edge of their seats. It’s all craft, technique, and it’s all a learning process.

While it was heartbreaking at the time, I’m truly grateful to the agents who nursed me along. I doubt I would have kept seeking, kept learning. You mentioned body language. That may be true when personally meeting someone, but in a book, a writer must master the craft of portraying the emotions, the suspense, in the written word.

Perhaps I should mention that I don’t write purely for pleasure. I write because it’s my job. I have a weekly column in my Southern CA newspaper, write other articles and have had my stories published in major magazines. But I’m striving to have a novel in every bookstore and want the big bucks the major writers make. Whether I accomplish that or not depends on how hard I work and my skill in telling my stories. But that’s my goal, and I’m willing to do anything necessary to get there, whether it’s taking one more class or spending vacation time with my nose glued to the computer.

I guess you could say I want it all.

Hi Brenda,

The three acts -- a beginning, a middle and an end? I'm sure that all creative writing courses improve and hone writers' skills and I would applaud all writers who are prepared to learn more about the process of writing.

If you are now grateful instead of heartbroken, then you have learned a great deal and the fact you are willing to pass that knowledge on is to your credit. Well done!

I haven't read any Jeffrey Archer novels but my brother has. He said the writing is not very impressive but you have to turn the page, his stories grip and you have to know what happens next. Seems like that's the bottom line -- if you want to write a bestseller, it has to be a page-turner. I hope you make it! I really, really do

Thanks, Shelagh, I do too!

Of course I was heartbroken at the time. Rejections are horrible no matter how they try to soften the blow. But it only makes sense to realize that writing is an art, and like any artist, it usually takes learning to craft to know how this line is supposed to form or how to sketch the dimensions in a landscape.

George's analogy about the diamond says it perfectly.

In the classes I teach, I show my students what took me years to learn. I love watching them progress. Gives me a lot of satisfaction.

I agree with your brother about certain books. But, like an agent or publisher, it's all subjective. That's what so wonderful and maddening at the same time.

Yes, the beginning, middle, and end. But it's also learning what each act should accomplish. Once you learn that, along with other techniques, you can hold your reader in suspense and give them that emotional release at the end.

Writers who jeer and sneer at structure are missing something wonderful--it provides wonderful satisfaction for the reader as well as the writer and I'm so grateful I felt forced to learn.

Why do I write?

So many reasons...

I hail from a long line of southern storytellers. I picked up one of those big fat pencils at a young age, and I've been writing down fables every since.

Love it. Love chocolate. Love to write and eat chocolate. Even had chocolate in the title of my first published novel.

Work? Is it supposed to be work?

Hmm....

The revision and editing can be a bit tiring. But, the initial creation is like the best drug in the world--makes me higher than a Georgia pine to sit down and dream up characters and situations.

George Maciver wrote:

I used to enjoy writing like it was a hobby. However, after writing 3 books it's become a hard job I have to discipline myself to every day.

Yes, dicipline is one of the many keys to success in writing and in life!!

Madhatter,

Like you, I write because there are stories that need telling. I agree with you that initial creation is the greatest feeling. I just need the discipline and time to do the detailed editing and revisions.

Lynn

Hey Rhett, how's it going with your agent? Any good or encouraging news yet? I'm ready to part company with mine. She keeps submitting it as a romance, which it's not.

lynnjett wrote:

Madhatter,

Like you, I write because there are stories that need telling. I agree with you that initial creation is the greatest feeling. I just need the discipline and time to do the detailed editing and revisions.

Lynn

Well said.