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Ashbee
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11/07/2008 17:30
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FOR WRITERS - why do you write?
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I started to write as a child to create my own answer to Enid Blyton! I stopped for a while but started again as a teenager with journals...a way of 'saying' what was on my mind. Journals have saved my sanity over the years but in recent years I've wanted to write articles and even more recently I've tried my hand at fiction but a stifled adult imagination keeps getting in the way.
Why do you write?
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AlexP
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(member)
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12/07/2008 10:43
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Re: FOR WRITERS - why do you write?
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From a very young age, I've written as a means of expression or an outlet. I was a very quiet child - very much into my books and enjoyed my own company. I have written journals over the years and still do, although not necessarily regularly on a day-to-day basis. I always carry a notebook with me so that I can write down things like a quotation I've seen or my reaction to something. I have loads of notes at home which contain my responses to people and places or ideas for a short story, or for the characters in that story, etc. etc. I have always written for personal reasons and never really considered being published - until a friend suggested that I ought to. I'm not sure about that - but I would like to improve my writing and have contact with other like-minded people.
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issi
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(member)
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12/07/2008 11:08
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Re: FOR WRITERS - why do you write?
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I have written since I learned to write, really, I remember making up stories as a primary school child. When I was 12 I bought a hard backed notebook and wrote a story about schoolgirls, complete with illustrations (don't you find that most of us writers are arty as well?). One day in the school library one of the girls around the table noticed what I was doing and insisted on reading it. It was passed around the table and everyone read the book (which was nearly complete). They all pronounced it "brilliant" and asked what was going to happen next (I ended it on the note of a girl being accused of stealing a bracelet when it was really her 'enemy' who had planted it!). Guess what? Me, or should I say 'moi' was absolutely mortified, did not believe they had enjoyed the read, and that night I took the 'book' home and burned it on the kitchen fire!!! Even today I would love to read it. Of course it was rubbish, but if I had been a different person I would have relished the praise and thought I was the next Enid Blyton and perhaps been one today.
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Ashbee
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(member)
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12/07/2008 15:27
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Re: FOR WRITERS - why do you write?
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Oh, Issi, why did you burn it? No, don't answer that, I can understand just how you must have felt. But I wonder if this is another difference between writers who want to be published and writers who just want to write? Some kind of shyness? I've had a few small things published - sent on a moment of madness on each occasion - but I did feel hugely embarrassed when I saw them in print and told absolutly no-one except about the one I've mentioned already on the forum. The article in Family History was noticed by someone I knew and word got around but otherwise...
So what do you write now? And do you show your stuff to anyone?
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issi
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(member)
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13/07/2008 13:05
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Re: FOR WRITERS - why do you write?
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I have not written anything solid for around a year now. I have a collection of short, women's magazine type, stories I have written and sent off for publication. All rejected. I have entered a few short story competitions, including a recent W&H one, but never got anywhere. I did learn that you should study your market carefully before sending anything yet it is not enough. I would love to write a collection of short stories for children as I have a few which I wrote for my daughter when she was small. I mentioned before that I have written a teach yourself book about typing. You can learn the basic principles from the book alone within a couple of hours. I have sent it to a publisher (who didn't bother replying) then to an agent who was not interested. I am not someone who perseveres and I can see that is my biggest failing. I don't give my work to others to read which is silly because I can see I lack feedback in everything but I think I just fear the embarrassment of being told something isn't that good. Oh what a wimp! The good news is that I have worked on myself quite a bit and I am ready to venture forth again.
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Ashbee
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(member)
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13/07/2008 13:12
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Re: FOR WRITERS - why do you write?
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I can understand that fear of rejection but there are lots of really successful books/writers who have been rejected dozens of times before someone saw the potential of what they were offering. I get disheartened too but I think we have to learn that a rejection doesn't mean the work isn't any good, just it hasn't found its right slot yet. Don't give up - keep sending out and entering competitions etc...I'm sure it will pay off.
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Re: FOR WRITERS - why do you write?
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In "Your Lives" I posted two threads yesterday, and although these threads are about different matters in the life, they are a major contributing factor to my ongoing writer's block. The "friend" (now ex friend) whose energy vampirism repeatedly sucked me dry..... And a shop in the making.....
I so desperately need to get back to releasing my creativity. But I need to do this early mornings.... but how can I do this when pets and a house need sorting before dashing off to that shop..... I am a morning person, and cannot even write a sensible letter to friends in the evening..... so forget serious writing!! I feel like I am wasting precious time, and trying to find a solution. As I am full of ideas and they need to be "written down".
Why do I write???? The only reason I can offer is, because I want and need to. I simple have to, it is a must.
When it comes to reading, I can have 2, 3, or even 4 books at once on the go. And I have noticed that I am equally odd when it comes to writing..... I can be obsessing about one thing, and suddenly something else for something different hits me..... and once that has been satisfied, I then can get back again to the previous without skipping a beat.
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Ashbee
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(member)
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13/07/2008 18:45
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Re: FOR WRITERS - why do you write?
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It's interesting how many of us say 'we have to' write but then say we can't find the time. Why is that? How much time do you actually need to write? Does it have to be a big chunk every day or would a smaller slot of say, 10 minutes, every single day add up to something useful over the space of a week? If you think dedicated a small bit of time every day to writing would help take a look at Pen on Fire by Barbara De Marco Barret - this is a brilliant book for busy women writers...
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AlexP
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(member)
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14/07/2008 13:48
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Re: FOR WRITERS - why do you write?
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Chatelaine, what you said in your post was very similar to how I feel.
Apart from reasons given in previous posts, the reason I write, too, is because I want and need to. There have been times in recent years when circumstances have prevented me from writing and, during those times, I have felt deprived, and also detached from 'me', if that makes any sense. It is as if an essential part of me has had to shrink away.
With reading, too, I usually have more than one book on the go at a time - dipping into one or the other depending on how I am feeling.
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issi
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(member)
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14/07/2008 22:44
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Re: FOR WRITERS - why do you write?
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I was watching Richard and Judy last year where they praised the winner of a writing competition. I bought the magazine and read the story and - did not understand it! Both Richard and Judy said knowingly that they could see why this story shone out - I could not! I always feel I am missing something. I remember it was something about loss and a balloon blowing away in the sky in the last paragraph, but that was about it. To me, it was not in the least bit interesting, I just did not get it. I did have an idea once about writing something really obscure and sending it off, just to see if that would get anywhere. Watch this space.
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Re: FOR WRITERS - why do you write?
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Issi, that reminds me a bit of my two shop colleagues - they stand there delightedly enthousing about a contemporary painting or an art object, and I just look at it in a bemused fashion...... It doesn't do me a thing!!! I have discovered across the years, that sometimes artists and writers, all creative people in fact, can try too hard to shine out with their difference, their obscurity, and in their quest they in fact loose the "plot".
Ever heard art critics waffling on in front of an especially modern painting?? I have, and have had to walk away sniggering...... "XYZ's sorrow and pain are combined within that black brush stroke in the corner.....!" "My learned friend, XYZ has overcome his sorrow and pain, look at hte jubilance of the orange and yellow cascade of joy..." Believe me, many of them haven't a clue what they are seeing but waffle on importanty nonetheless..... Some artists milk it for what it is worth...... Same with writers of course!!
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issi
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(member)
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16/07/2008 22:14
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Re: FOR WRITERS - why do you write?
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I can't bear to be made to feel inferior just because I don't get a painting, or a story. You are absolutely right Chatelaine. I have endured being looked down on because I did not see anything in a framed piece of black paper. I had to know all about the artist and where he was in his life in order to get it. No I don't. Art, I heard the other day, is when something you see serves no useful purpose other than to 'be' - it has nothing to do with beauty or uplifting or sending us a message then.
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