Jennifer Jackson links to two interesting places today, and I can’t resist.
There’s More than One Measure of Success as a Writer by Patrick Ness, suggesting that enjoyment alone is enough reason to write, and maybe unpublished writers are also writers?
and
Best Thing about Writing? Money by Allison Flood in which Colm Toibin suggests that his writing is all about cash, not enjoyment.
Hmmm…I suspect there’s lots more to be said on this, and I suspect also that this is not a clear dichotomy.
I wrote a fairly long-winded response to Jennifer’s original posting, and then realized that I should probably post that here for purposes of discussion, because it’s a topic I find fascinating as an author, a former writer of a fairly popular fan fiction story, and an academic researcher.
First of all, thank you for posting these links.
Excellent questions. As an academic interested in pop culture, I’ve actually presented papers on the idea that writing for enjoyment on-line can springboard into practice for publication, and one of the things that many of my primary sources say in interviews is that they’d really rather NOT enter what they perceive as the dog-eat-dog world of trying to publish, that the fans that they have who read their work are validation enough.
As I have moved toward publication myself, I know that the one thing I miss about writing online has been the sense of community that you don’t have as a pre-published writer. I liken writing on the internet to local performance for musicians and actors. However, if you want to make the big time, you might have to go to a larger performance venue, and the competition gets harder.
But I digress. (Academics will do that.)
What do I enjoy the most about writing? There’s a certain moment when the imagination gives you that rush, when you get the inkling that the thing you’re doing is working. I also enjoy when I have a character who captivates me so much that I can’t help wanting to tell the story they are telling me. If it’s working, I’m acting out my scenes in the car. It’s performance. It’s fun.
That, we can’t share with anyone else, and even if we don’t get paid for the work, well, feeling good is a kind of payment.
Since I have a book coming out in September, I find that indeed, some of the sparkle comes off the raw joy of the writing process, and it comes to resemble the work I did on my thesis, rather than the writing I did solely for pleasure. Yet, I can deal. The idea of seeing a book in print, and perhaps ultimately publishing in the bigger leagues gives me a different kind of pleasure.
If I’m very lucky, I can recapture the happiness of discovery in my first drafts. I want cake, and I want ice cream. I don’t think they’re mutually exclusive.
It also helps that I don’t rely on my writing for my income, which means if I am unhappy, I have options. I wonder sometimes if paying the bills destroys the joy of the art, introducing a kind of stress into an environment of creativity?
I’d love to see what you all think about this.
Catherine
I’ve been reading the agent/editor blogs for about a year now.
I’m less interested in publication as a result. There’s a whole lot of commitment that I’m not interested in making at this time – too many kids still at home who require my attention. I do want to write (kinda blocked right now) and share it, but I’m not expecting to make it part of the income stream any time soon.
That said, I’m totally psyched about you being published!
I read a follow-up to that Colm Toibin piece in which they asked a lot of different authors. Seems like 75% of them really hate writing, the other 25% enjoy it.
I think part is the fact that once someone writes for a living, it becomes a job, something they have to do every day. It is rather repetitive and solitary as a career.
But it is all perspective. Very few careers are as creative, so if that is what is most important, it can be a good choice. But most of the work is done at the sentence level, both the writing and revision, and that is a different kind of creative.
Luckily for the two of us, we’re lucky enough to have careers we like (right? :), so we can write when we want!
Seems like 75% of them really hate writing, the other 25% enjoy it.
How sad that only 75 percent enjoy it, especially with the amount of people struggling to break into it.
I agree that having another way to win bread really takes the edge off having to produce. I am keen to continue to enjoy my writing.
There are ways to keep writing from being solitary. Connecting via the internet and conferencing seem to help.
Catherine