Why a writer writes…

I was talking with a mate recently, and he mentioned that someone who works in his company has the idea of quitting by the time they’re 40 so that they could write full-time. However, my mate couldn’t understand why the person had to wait that long.

I went on to explain that at a guess, roughly 95% of all writers have at least a part-time job, if not a full-time job and can only write in their spare time. The reason for this I said was that in the majority of cases there simply isn’t the money in the industry to allow more writers to work full-time.

This reminded me of when I was at university studying fitness, at the end of my first year and wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue the course (due to various reasons, including getting interested / motivated in my writing) and so I went to speak with the head of the creative writing department. The lady I spoke with assured me all of the writing lecturers were writers themselves, but had to have a full-time position to pay the bills.

I therefore explained to my mate that writers write because we feel that we have something to say, or that there’s some experience that we want to pass on to other people so that they can learn from the writer’s life. Or simply that the writer wants to create something that sparks a reaction in the reader, whether that be, happiness, sadness, joy, fear, trepidation, elation, etc)

So basically I think it’s important to keep the intention of a piece in mind when writing it, because it can assist in steering the piece in the right direction. Although oddly enough, there’s been many times when I’ve had ideas for stories where I’m left thinking what’s the point in this story, but then later as I continue to work on it, meaning is revealed to me. From this point the direction of the story changes and the writing becomes more focused.

Aims of my writing

Whilst on the Arvon Foundation short-story writing course in 2009, one of the tasks we completed was to write down the aims of our writing, or what we would like someone to think of our writing. The below is what I came up with at the time:

I’d like my writing to have:-

> the humour of Robert A. Heinlein
> the bizarreness of Philip K. Dick
> the drama of David Weber
> the prophecy of Arthur C. Clarke
> the inventivenes of Isaac Asimov
> the scope of Frank Herbert
> the realism of Joe Haldeman

I suppose that part of this task was to help us find our own voice, perhaps even our style. But overall, I think it was to get us to think about what type of writer / the kind of writing we wanted to do. I think that knowing any amount of this will help to provide focus, motivation and confidence in one’s writing endeavours.

Looking at this list now, I think I would adjust it a little bit. But overall, I still think that it sums up at least partially, how I want my writing to aim towards.