I've noticed something. Many people start out writing for fun. For pleasure. Because it's something that they want to do. Sure, they come by it many different ways for many different reasons, but all in all, it's something that they do because they want to do it, not because they have to. It's about the art of creation, the fun of telling a story and sharing it with others. It's about writing for writing's sake. No more and no less.
Along the way, though, many of the For Pleasure writers arrive at a crossroads. They have a choice to make. They can keep doing this writing thing for pleasure, for fun, or they can get serious about it. They can try to make it their living and do it professionally. They can study it. Develop it. Train at writing like professional athletes train at sports. When that transition happens, writing becomes more than a hobby, more than a pleasure. It becomes work.
Professional writers are no longer free to write only when the muse moves them. They have to be able to write humor when the world is collapsing around them, write dry newsletters when the voices for their latest novel are whispering in their head, write magazine articles, greeting cards, puzzles, and short stories and do it all whether they want to or not because that's how they put food on the table and keep a roof over their head. It can be hard and grueling labor. Sometimes, they have to turn down projects they would love to participate in because they do not pay enough and accept work they loathe because it will pay next month's utility bill.
That's not to say that professional writers don't enjoy their craft -- because, really, who would go through everything a writer experiences didn't possess joy and passion for the craft of writing? -- but along the way, the joy may become muted as they plough forward, building their reputation, connecting with their audience, and building a market base. The business of writing cloaks some of the gleeful abandonment that young writers often feel.
However… And this is important… Once they have achieved a measure of success, once food is assured on the table and the roof over their heads is more than paid for… writers who genuinely love the craft start writing for pleasure again. They begin accepting projects just for the fun of it. They create works that, on the surface, have no market feasibility, that are done for the pure love the art. Sometimes, those become their best works, the works that more than stand the test of time, the works that represent a culmination of learning and studying.
It's a completion of the circle. A return to the beginning.
We should all experience such homecomings in our own lives.
13 comments:
I must be a freak. I've never "written for pleasure" and don't even know what that means. Since day one, since the first day I thought, "I want to be a writer" I wanted to write for publication, money, and success. Even at 15, as soon as I'd finish a story, it was off to some magazine in the hopes they'd buy it. I've always thought that writing would be a cool way to make a living. Unfortunately, I've never succeeded at making that a reality.
I know I didn't do as good a job with this post as I could have. When I first realized that "writer" was an appropriate response to the question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I wrote with the idea that I would be published. However, those early stories weren't shown around. I never intended for anyone to see them.
Of course, I was around eleven or so. Later, when I was older, and comfortable showing my work, I still just wrote. I liked to write. I was starting to eye markets, but I did not study markets. I did not write for the markets. I wrote because these were the stories I wanted to tell. Except for schoolwork, I didn't write non-fiction.
Yet even that doesn't fully cover what I'm getting at. Full-time writers look for the items that need writers. They write boring stuff. Things that hobbyists -- and it's not a dirty word -- would not even realize needed writers. They write to editorial order. They are given outlines, ideas, assignments, and told to write. The stuff they do is not necessarily their own inspiration. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn't. Sometimes it's a collaboration.
But it is work.
It doesn't matter if your father just died. If you have a humor column for a magazine, you have to write it and be funny. What you feel, what you want to write, doesn't always enter into the equation. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes, it doesn't matter.
But when you look at individuals like Neil Gaiman or Josh Whedon, they are at the point where they can play again. Not always, but sometimes. Where they can say, "Gee, I've always wanted to write a western set in space." And they can do it and have fun with it. Or it can be something like Stephen King, who has sometimes suggests that he might retire and yet who has admitted that if he does retire, he will still write. He just won't necessarily sell the things he writes.
Do you have passion for the craft, Ed? Do you love the stories that you write? Do they keep you awake at night? Not always, but sometimes? Why do you do this? For fame and fortune? If the government passed a law tomorrow that said all art had to be free -- that no one could charge money for any form of entertainment, including any form of literature -- would you still write?
{I'd like to hear everyone else's response to these questions, too. I think this comment is the nutshell version of the article I should have written.}
I've never aspired to be a professional writer; I simply write for my own enjoyment. If I do happen to get something published that's simply a bonus.
My niece, on the other hand, wrote like a demon and wanted to be a writer when she grew up. She started out doing fanfic (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) but started doing some of her own works. Some of it was pretty good stuff. :)
Was?
Yes. In this instance, past tense is the reality of life.
I'm sorry to hear that, Rllg.
I've wanted to be found on the bookshelves of Barnes & Noble (or the like) since I was a little girl. But fortune, that never entered the picture. I wrote because I loved it, I loved books and everything about them, and I wanted to make them too.
But for a long, long time, I never pursued publication. Life was in the way, so writing was pure pleasure, nothing more.
Now that I'm trying, seriously, to be published, I'm still not after a fortune. Maybe fame :D But I have a day job that I'd be a fool to give up. So I'll be one of those novelists who writes fiction furiously and hopefully prolifcally, who also happens to have a government paycheck coming in.
But then - to answer Lori's question - if a law was passed that said all art and writing must be made free to everyone - I'd still write. If I'm being read, I'm a happy writer.
This is a beautiful bit of insight.
If the government passed a law that said all art had to be free...yeah, I'd keep writing. Right now, I have no interest in writing anything for free, because I don't want to (and yet, let's not be knee-jerk reactionary about it. It's not the end of the world, to give something away for free. There are always reasons).
I write because I have stories. And I when I have an audience, I wrote for them, and I enjoy it. I might not write as fast (who am I kidding? I still would).
I love stories, and I love writing, and so I write. Publishing and all that yaz is the logical progression, but I don't write because I have a deep love of PUBLISHING, if you see what I mean.
I enjoy writing for writing. It's not something I get to do much right now and it's one escape from the daily grind.
Publication is one of those things that would be nice, but I'm not overly worried about it at this point.
I guess I haven't made it past the first part of the circle.
I found out at a fairly early age that I could write stories that people enjoyed reading. I could make them laugh.
Hello power!!
Well, maybe not power exactly, but a sense that I could effect change simply through an arrangement of words. Everybody wants to be good at something and writing was that something for me.
If there was no chance of getting paid I'd write less, maybe not at all. It wouldn't have stopped me when younger though.
I started writing for the love. Publication never entered my mind. Oh, I dabbled at publication and had a few things published back in the 80's, but it wasn't until the late 90's that I began the think of it as something that I could do seriously.
I'm in that haze of writing where I rarely feel able to just "play" at my writing. If I'm writing short stories, I feel guilty that I'm neglecting a novel. If I'm writing on my novel, I get a zillion ideas for shorts and feel guilty for ignoring them.
Writing my silly Friday doodles in Lolzcat is my way of cutting loose. I do it just because I can. I also find that flash fiction can be an outlet for playtime.
Even serious writers can haz fun now plz. kthxbai.
Good post, Lori.
Actually, it does matter if your father died. I've lost all motivation and desire to write.
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