Missed my Friday blog deadline because my life
-- and the stupid website --
kept getting in the way of my writing.
I'm reading a good book, but only at two or three chapters a sit. I gave up on the baking a couple days because my hands and hip hurt. I'm behind on my critiques. I'm a good three days behind in my blog reading. Who knows when I'll get my next critique submission revised. The whole mess's enough to make me wonder why I even try to write.
Then, last week, E. J. Wesley asked:
How do you measure success?
How do you measure success?
The question has stuck with me since I read it ... maybe because I've finally sold a couple things.
I'll ask: Why bother writing ... especially, if you collect nothing but rejections "letters"?
What makes the time writing worth while to you?
For me, there's a certain amount of arrogance in thinking I can keep a bunch of characters on the straight and narrow of the plot line -- when I can't even start my "whine" in the right blog.
I know why I write. The precedent started with an imaginary playmate who appeared before I was three years old. By the time I was four, I can remember going on adventures with Jerome [swinging like Tarzan from the neighbor's weeping willow branches] ... but not the adventures.
In sixth grade, my teacher revealed the secret that stories were written ... and didn't appear miraculously in bound paper. I picked up the bad habit of writing stories in junior high and haven't stopped since. It's an itch that needs to be scratched.
No writing ... and I spend too much time day dreaming about what would happen if maybe that "strident lady" marching down the aisle of the store met up with a demon in the parking lot. Somewhere along the line I learned how to function at the mundane level while jumping into flights of fancy -- though I suspect doing so might prove dangerous.
Why did I keep writing fiction for some six years without any positive feedback except for a few requests for partials which ended up "not being for me"? Again, writing is a bad habit accompanied by an itch that needs to be scratched.
More important, my stories interest me. I care about my characters. They surprise me. They sometimes make me laugh ... event though I don't write humor any more.
I know why I write. The precedent started with an imaginary playmate who appeared before I was three years old. By the time I was four, I can remember going on adventures with Jerome [swinging like Tarzan from the neighbor's weeping willow branches] ... but not the adventures.
In sixth grade, my teacher revealed the secret that stories were written ... and didn't appear miraculously in bound paper. I picked up the bad habit of writing stories in junior high and haven't stopped since. It's an itch that needs to be scratched.
No writing ... and I spend too much time day dreaming about what would happen if maybe that "strident lady" marching down the aisle of the store met up with a demon in the parking lot. Somewhere along the line I learned how to function at the mundane level while jumping into flights of fancy -- though I suspect doing so might prove dangerous.
Why did I keep writing fiction for some six years without any positive feedback except for a few requests for partials which ended up "not being for me"? Again, writing is a bad habit accompanied by an itch that needs to be scratched.
More important, my stories interest me. I care about my characters. They surprise me. They sometimes make me laugh ... event though I don't write humor any more.
Why do I write? The results amuse me more than frustrate me.
[Maybe next week, I'll have time to write a more normal blog ...
before I go on Christmas vacation.]
4 comments:
I write to entertain myself as well. There isn't much worth watching on TV anymore.
It's impossible to get our regular work done around the holidays. I don't know why.
I just like to make up stories.
Once I have some success, I'll let you know how I measure it :-)
I write because I have too many dreams that are just begging to come out on paper. I feel miserable when I don't write - worse than I do when I do write and don't get anywhere.
Even if I never get anything published in my lifetime, I will continue to write just because I doubt my brain will let me do anything else.
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