Why Write?

A good question, or so it seems to me...

I mean, ok there are people who write and you could be forgiven for assuming that they do it for the money, but that's like saying that Picasso painted for the money, and anyway what about the rest? The vast majority of people who write never make any useful money out of it, but still they write.

Is it like buying lottery tickets then? Do we write in the hope that the next book will be the one - the best-seller that makes millions - the one that will change our lives for ever...? Well, maybe, but I'm far from convinced.

As in most things I'm not qualified to comment on why other people write, but I know what motivates me... well I think I do.

Let me start by telling you what doesn't motivate me to write. I don't write for the money - I've been writing for thirty years and only even started to contemplate trying to get something published in the last twelve months. To be frank, the sales of The Testing of Archie Rathbone wouldn't pay for a packet of cigarettes (just as well I don't smoke I suppose). I'm not motivated to write by a need for external validation - most of what I've written has never been read by anyone other than me, and the rest has only had a very narrow audience.

So if it isn't acclaim, and it isn't money, then what...? Is it the thrill of seeing your name on the cover of a book? Is it the hope of some sort of imortality - leaving something behind for posterity? These things are all factors I'm sure, but none of them on its own persuades me to write.

I'm afraid that this is going to sound pretentious, but however uncomfortable I may feel in saying it, I know it's true: One reason I write is that it's a form of self-expression. For some people it's music, for some it's painting, for others it's kicking a football around a field that lets them feel that they know who they are, and tells anyone else who's interested. For me, it's writing. That said though, it's not that my stories tell the reader much about me (though I suppose that might be the case), more that the creative process itself acts as a form of therapy - a release of the pressures of modern existence.

Over the years (and increasingly so more recently) I've found that if I go for long periods without writing (more than a month or two) then I start to feel unsettled - I experience very real withdrawal symptoms. The pressure starts to build...

Now you may be wondering what's brought on this self-analysis - why all the navel-gazing? Well, I suppose I feel that if I were you, and I'd read my earlier posts about my attempts to get my novel selling on Amazon I'd be beginning to wonder - why bother? I'd estimate that The Testing of Archie Rathbone must have taken at least six months to write (if you include all the redrafting and other associated activities). Based on current showing, it looks as though downloads are going to struggle to make it into three figures (and the majority to date have been free of charge) so you can work out for yourself that writing (in this case at least) doesn't pay much per hour!

So, for me at leat, that's the answer - the reason I write - I need to. I can go for days, weeks without letting my mind emerse itself in that heady, intoxicating creative smog, and then one day I'll suddenly become aware of feeling a little edgey. I won't know why at the start, and it will just linger for a few days, getting steadily more pressing, insistent, harder to ignore. Then the penny will drop - realisation will dawn, and I'll look for opportunities to start writing. Sometimes it won't be possible - after completing the first draft of The Testing of Archie Rathbone I had to force myself to carry out several redrafts, but after the initial creative process has run its course these largely editorial exercises are staid and suffocating by comparison. Unhappily then, the clock that times when I'll need my next fix usually starts its count soon after the first draft is filed...

It's been quite a while since I last did any writing. Although I had written the first sixty pages of my next novel when I decided to go back and put the effort into getting The Testing of Archie Rathbone ready for publication, that was last year.

And now? Now I'm starting to feel edgey...