I'm sure most of you have heard of National Novel Writing Month. I'm sure some of your writing buddies have started, quit, still going and barely hanging on. You may think they are insane. I may agree, but only about the pace of NaNo being insane. But it's the theory of getting from a blank page to a novel I'm curious about today. Specifically, the why, not the how.
I understand and believe in the rule of thought that the only way to write a novel is to sit down and write one. You can have the best story ideas, but if you never get your butt in that chair then you all you have is a good idea. The same goes for writing out the first three chapters of a novel and then you get hit with another brilliant idea. You close that pesky word document and write out the next story. Rinse. Repeat.
And, then there are the chosen few who sit down and write a whole novel. Doesn't matter if you write it out of sequence. If you start at the beginning and then you write until you type 'the end'. There is something larger at work: stubbornness, ego, your contract says so. But you finish, knowing what you write may never see the light of day. It doesn't matter if it takes you a year or thirty days, but you see your novel until the very (most times bitter) end.
The true insanity is that you open another word document and do it all again.
I want to know what drives you to keep on writing.
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3 comments:
As you suggest, stubbornness and ego play a big role. I don't like leaving projects unfinished -- it's something I did when I was younger and it never felt good.
Besides, once you finish the first, beginning a second doesn't seem so daunting. (I'm a tiring hiking companion; I tend to forget immediately the pain of the hill we've just scaled, in favor of tackling the next one.)
And part of the drive is income-related. I already write for a living. I'd like a greater proportion of my income to come from writing fiction. Since I currently get 0% of my income from fiction, this will be an easy goal to meet. :)
I write because I must. Yeah, part is ego. Once you've written a whole book, seen your words in something of a book order, you want that thrill again and again. Besides, if I don't write the voices in my head overwhelm me. LOL
I have a quote from some famous dead poet that says "I write for the same reason I breathe, because if I did not I would die."
Of course, there's nothing in that quote about *finishing* what one writes, is there? :)
I write, and try my best to finish, book after book after book because I feel a responsibility to my characters once I begin. I created them, I gave them this life and this potential for eternal happiness and then I gave them this problem...I have to help them fix that problem and get to the good stuff. Otherwise it's just plain mean, to have created these characters who, to me, are as real as you and me, and then leave them hanging in limbo forever because I got bored? Cruel, wow. So yeah, while I write and finish books also because I want to make money and some small part of me longs to be the Nora Roberts of gay smut, the main reason I do what I do is because I owe the characters in my head and in my stories a life.
And you've reminded me why, even though I'm 15k behind, I have to finish NaNo. Because my boys deserve the good stuff.
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