I’ve asked myself this question often, sometimes with a tone of calm curiosity, sometimes with absolute frustration.
What I come back to time and time again is this: I just enjoy writing.
When I was a kid, this basic fact was complicated by another fact: I was good at writing. With that came well-meaning people saying, “you really should consider publishing.” With that came a constant loop in my head of Queen and David Bowie singing “Under Pressure.”
I decided to go to grad school, which just emphasized the “really should consider publishing” idea. My classmates were publishing, or aiming to publish. We were all willing to do anything (almost) for an agent.
But, then I got an agent. And nothing happened. Then I got another agent. I’m still not published. Having dealt with submissions and rejections more times than I’d care to count, I realize that the business part of being a writer is not that interesting to me. I’d love to publish, of course, but more to have a conversation with people who have thoughts similar to mine. Being accepted by a major publisher translates to a bigger conversation, theoretically (though ePublishing is challenging that notion).
I guess I write to connect.
It’s like this quote from Jonathan Ames:
“People don’t expect too much from literature. They just want to know they’re not alone with being confused.”
That pretty much sums up why I read, and also why I write.
Novelist Rachel Kadish says:
“We linger on the nagging questions; we linger on things that frighten or delight us. We can’t get enough of human unpredictability, of precipitous beauty, of the sheer weirdness of the world. We write to imagine our own freedom or someone else’s; to face down our fears; to so light up a situation with absurdity that the whole world has to stop in its tracks, nod its head, and agree what a delightful thing absurdity is.”
Yep, that’s it. That’s the crux of it.
Kadish also goes on to say, “If no one is paying anyway, shouldn’t we write what we want rather than what we think will sell?”
Yes, absolutely. It’s taken some time for me to come to terms with this. I kept trying to be “successful” as defined by society, which is publishing. After all, nobody at family gatherings asks, “How is your writing evolving? Are you enjoying your characters?” They ask, “So, any book deals yet?”
I just have to remember back to elementary school, before I knew anything about the publishing world, when I just wrote stories because it was fun. If I can keep that feeling alive despite the pressures and “shoulds,” that is a success.