Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Who We Write For

Somewhere along the lines of writing my first book, telling my brother to "write for himself" and try to start working on my second book, I seem to have forgotten that I should, indeed, be writing for MYSELF. This entry by Neil Gaiman reminded me. Not only to not feel that the writer should be obligated to entertain us, but also that as the writer, we should not feel obligated to produce. Obviously producing earns money and money is, at least a little, good.

But if after my first book I want to scale some giant mountain instead of writing the second book, I can.

Of course no one is waiting for my second book, sitting on pins and needles, wondering if ___ and ____ survive and if ____ get's that bag he's been drooling over. But sometimes when I write I wonder if I'm making good decisions in my writing, and I wonder what my audience things. What I should be thinking about is if these actions are true to the story. I need to work on that a bit more.

1 comment:

  1. You had me on the whole "write for yourself, no obligation to entertain or produce" right up until you said "money is, at least a little, good." No need to qualify it. Money itself is inanimate, but to the extent that it represents life and work and production and trade and compensation for success - well, to that extent its ENTIRELY good. Its usually the reaction to money, not the money itself, that is the problem.

    If you get published, this will probably become an even bigger problem. Once people ARE expecting something to happen, or hoping for it, or watching anxiously, then there are people to let down. Critics start coming out. Doubt can set in even faster.

    I assume you'll at least send your book out to publishers? Any thought of going self-published if that doesn't work? Or haven't you gotten that far ahead yet?

    ReplyDelete