Why Do You Write?

It's the perennial question.

Someone mobs you after class and demands to know why you can't go to a party during November.... "Um, well, I've joined this cult and November is sacred. Um, yeah..." as you stuff your latest notes on your NaNo novel behind your back and try to look innocent.

Your dear mothers calls and asks why you can't have a normal hobby, a couple kids, a rich husband all ready.... "Gosh, Mom, I'm just trying to be independent. I've always wanted to write like Ayn Rand you know." And get paid like JKR, but you'd settle for Stephen King I'm sure.

Your spouse ask you how your day went and begs you to tell them something real, not about a scene in your latest WIP.... "Ahhhh. Right. Reality? Er..... Do I have a life?"

Another rejection letter shows up, form letter, not right for us... "Why am I doing this to myself???"

Well?

Why are you?

Do you want fame? Glory? Wealth? The pleasure of seeing your name in print? A couple of ARCs to shove into the face of doubters?

I hope not. To get fame in writing you usually have to be dead, which is a bit pricey in my way of thinking when you can be famous in California for so many other things. There is rarely glory in writing, and if there is I'd be suspicious. The number of writers who live off their writing can be counted without hitting double-digits (possibly... I can't name many). If you wanted your name in print you would have gone into newspaper writing so you had a byline every day. And, if you crunch the numbers, the chances of ever holding an ARC of your work is impossibly slim.

Look over at Kristin Nelson's statistics, she's about average for an agent I'm guessing. Maybe she has a little more business because she has a web presence and author's get to know her through her blog, but.... Last year she read 35,000 queries. Of those, 88 turned into requests for fulls.

That's 0.25% of all authors getting a request for a full.

Of that 0.25%, two authors were signed. Think of it, 2% of 0.25%.

You aren't writing to get published.

None of us are.

Publishing is a nice bonus. But it isn't promised to anyone. There are literally thousands of agents out there. If you can write a half-way decent book, you probably will get published. Eventually. But that cold comfort isn't going to push you to write after the first 100 rejections. Or after you hit a major stumbling block in chapter 7. Or after you tell a friend about your plot and they tell you to get counseling.

Be honest, what really makes you write?

Last night, around 11:30 pm, after a bruising day that left me wanting to curl into a fetal position and sob, I realized I hadn't written yet. For the past year and a half I've written six days of every seven. I opened my current WIP, stared at the screen, and forced myself to write.

Over an hour later I emerged from this fictional place to find a new chapter smiling at me and new ideas jumping like spring lambs in the meadow.

I started writing because it was a habit.

I kept writing because it was an escape.

I liked the writing because I have a cast of wonderful characters that I love even after almost 50k with them.

That's why I write. I write for me. If I never get published. If I send one thousand and ten query letters and still never see my name on the spine of a book. If everyone else stares at me like I'm crazy when I tell them about what I do in the evenings... It doesn't matter. I write for me. I write because the stories are part of who I am.

What I write may never change the world. It may never leave the hallowed gigabytes of my computer's memory. But I'm still having fun. I still wake up looking forward to unveiling that next chapter, rough and choppy though it may be.

Now, why do you write?