It’s a writing day for me. The coffee is brewing, and my mind is busy working out scenes, turning over words, trying out new ideas and word combinations. I think about why I write. Why is it I feel so driven to share my words?
Words are a human phenomenon. They’ve exploded with our population into every part of this planet, even into space. Each of us has so many words they spill over into others’ lives, more today than ever. We may not write letters the way people used to, but we remain an utterly wordy species. Email, blogs, cell phones, text messaging, personal websites, 40,000 people a year participating in National Novel Writing Month. Books, films, songs, news, television, junk mail—all of these incorporate the written or spoken word.
This reminds me of the singing of birds. One bird sings a sweet song, but a hundred birds singing in one tree sound like pure insanity. It can be overwhelming. We live in an age of information overload, and much of it comes to us in the form of words. Why are we so driven to keep adding more?
As to why we write fiction, it’s possible there’s a different answer for each writer. Or perhaps there’s one overarching answer.
For me, there were inklings and ideas, even dream sequences, that weren’t appropriate for expression as non-fiction or poetry. I hungered for an elusive, unknown story. This hunger became a persistent angst. Sometimes I’d find myself searching my bookshelves, unable to settle on the story that suited my mood. I longed to read a particular one. It hadn’t even been written, as far as I knew. Finally the notion struck me that I didn’t really want to read when I felt this way. I wanted to create. I hadn’t found the story I searched for because I kept looking outside myself. I turned my attention inward and found my stories there.
This happened frequently enough that I accumulated a collection of first chapters, scenes, and character sketches. The dream of writing planted itself, and compelled me with a constant need to expand my efforts. By my early twenties, when anyone asked what I wanted to do with my life, I would answer, I want to write novels.
The search for story, without or within, is perhaps a part of that hardwired need to search for God that Joseph Campbell wrote about. It’s still a mystery, as puzzling as the global cacophony of words—billions of human voices—and our aching need to extract meaning and form out of chaos, which includes that great, choppy sea of words.
1.
I found the phrase “today is a writing day” odd. Isn’t almost every day a writing day for you? How often do you sit down and write? For how long? Approximately how many words/pages do you turn out a week?
I’ve found that the most difficult part of writing for me is sticking to it. It’s kind of like going to the gym - you start out really enthusiastic, and for the first week or so you make the time for it. However, as time goes on, it becomes harder to stick with. Other things compete for the same time slot, and it always seems like writing time is the first to give. Have you experienced the same?
Comment by Peter — November 13, 2004 @ 4:16 pm
2.
Though I write nearly every day, I don’t write fiction every day. I try to schedule four hours a day, four to five days a week for fiction. On a good writing day, in four hours I can generate anywhere from nothing up to 2,500 words. Trust me, most days don’t achieve that 2,500 mark, and when they do that’s “rough” writing, it’s not the finished product, which can take much longer to hone and polish. I also spend time researching, mulling over ideas, plot elements, and so forth. Those activities, while productive, don’t produce words, only the potential for them.
When I wrote “Today is a writing day,” it was an expression of contentment and gratitude for a day I could spend writing fiction if I wished. It’s what I love to do, and the freedom of time to do it is a gift. For 27 years, off and on, I managed to fit my writing into evenings after work, weekends, and even some vacations. There were times I gave up in disgust. I’ve only in the past year had the freedom to spend my weekdays writing. This is due to early retirement from my former career, not because my writing is supporting me.
I get discouraged, I get lazy, I get distracted, I find things that are more “fun” to do. I’m often still discouraged by the simple fact that writing fiction doesn’t pay. It’s taken me five novels-two of them self-published, three of them never published-to come to this conclusion. Writing fiction doesn’t pay. But writing fiction is something I love and continue to do.
As for sticking with it, an idea for a novel is infatuation. Sometimes it sticks and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes all we have is a character, setting, or scene, not really enough for a novel. I have a file drawer full of first and second chapters of novels that fizzled out. I don’t consider them necessarily failures, since I learned from the writing, and I may even go back one day and finish some of them. I currently have three major projects and several smaller ones in work, though I’m focusing on one at the moment.
A good novel idea is like a marriage, which goes through its honeymoon phase, then settles into something slightly less passionate, but still has enough of the right qualities to not only help you stay with it, but to hold your interest by simply being with you day and night. The characters take on a life of their own. They have needs you must fill. Shadows Fall was like that for me. I conceived the idea many years before I started serious work on it. I’d given up on writing, at one point, but eventually realized I couldn’t quit until I wrote that book. I consider it my best work so far.
Comment by Barbara — November 14, 2004 @ 1:09 pm
3.
Thank you for sharing your experiences. I think that your marriage analogy is a good one - you need a similar commitment to a novel as to a spouse.
I look forward to the day when I can say “today is a writing day”.
Comment by Peter — November 15, 2004 @ 6:45 am
4.
The important thing is discipline. One day of writing, one day off, etc.
Comment by Marie Bernhart — May 5, 2006 @ 11:28 am