Writing is its own reward
By Guest | December 19, 2010 |
Therese here. Today’s guest was a quarter-finalist in our search for an unpublished contributor for Writer Unboxed. Samantha Clark runs a nice blog of her own, called Day by Day Writer, where she blogs about the writing life, among other things. She writes middle-grade fiction and has a background in journalism and editing. And–a seriously cool tidbit–she wrote two children’s travel books for charity. (Check them out HERE.) In Samantha’s WU application, she wrote:
When you’re passionate about something, it invades every aspect of your life. When I’m brushing my teeth, I’m reading a book on the counter; when I’m cooking and walking our dog, I’m listening to audio books; when I’m driving, I’m thinking about my characters; and when I’m trying to sleep, my characters are talking to me.
Where does that passion come from? What feeds it? Samantha’s here to tell us.
Writing is its own reward
Getting published is the goal for most if not all of us who start writing a book. We see the colorful book covers on the shelves at our local Borders and imagine our name on one.
But getting published is just one part of an amazing journey, a journey that some don’t start for fear of not getting published.
A friend emailed me recently saying, “I’ve written something. It’s probably crap, but do you want to see it?” My friend, a very talented writer, had an idea for a story and wrote the first four pages before cold feet set in. He had such fun writing those pages, but then he started to worry that they were no good, that no one would want to read them and they wouldn’t be good enough to be published.
I told him that, while I have the utmost confidence in his writing, getting published didn’t matter, at least, not now.
Getting published and writing a novel are two separate parts of the same coin, but before you can get published, you have to write. Sure, writing a novel isn’t easy. It takes a lot of hard work, and there’s no guarantee of seeing your work published when you’re done. But, writing gives us the opportunity for incredible rewards. Author Anne Lamott talks about this in her book Bird By Bird, how her students often ask her about getting published, and she tells them it won’t change their lives, but writing could.
Here are some rewards from writing:
Joy: When I see my characters coming together on the page.
Excitement: When my characters do things I never thought they’d do.
Passion: When I can’t sleep at night because my mind is going over the decision my character is making.
Inspiration: When I feel overwhelmed by other things in my life, sitting down and writing a page can make my feel like I can achieve anything.
Satisfaction: When other aspects of my life are frustrating, such as my job, writing gives me the satisfaction I crave.
When I started writing my first novel, I doubted myself all the time. I wondered if any of it was any good. And the thought that I didn’t have to do this, that I could just give up and no one would care, crossed my mind regularly.
But, I quickly realized I do have to do it. Not for some goal I had set, or desire to finish what I started. I have to write because I love it. The time I spend with my characters makes everything else in my life better.
I’ll never forget the morning I typed THE END on my first draft. My heart skipped a beat, my breath got shallow. I could feel the excitement in my stomach. I had finished my first novel.
At that moment, I didn’t care if it ever got published. I didn’t care if anyone else liked it (I knew it would need a lot of work before they would). I didn’t care if anyone else even read it. In that moment, I just reveled in the idea that I had told this story and gone through this journey with these characters.
And I couldn’t wait to do it again.
Writing a novel isn’t easy, but the rewards far outweigh the hardships. Just start, then take it one page at a time. Publishing will come later.
Thanks for a great post, Samantha.
Readers, what keeps you going? What feeds the writing process for you?
Photo courtesy Flickr’s FreeWine
Many thanks to today’s guest.
You can read more WU guest posts by visiting this link.
What keeps me going is things like this post – reminding me of why I started writing to begin with! Thanks so much for it.
“when I’m cooking and walking our dog”
Cooking your dog? HEE! (Sorry.)
“At that moment, I didn’t care if it ever got published. I didn’t care if anyone else liked it (I knew it would need a lot of work before they would). I didn’t care if anyone else even read it. In that moment, I just reveled in the idea that I had told this story and gone through this journey with these characters.”
Yes! I was so jittery and ecstatic, and you’ve elucidated exactly why!
Great post. I too feel joy, excitement, passion (although I can *always* fall asleep…), inspiration, and satisfaction. I hope everyone else here does too!
Two things keep me going. I still feel the power that words give you when you string them together, just as I did in first or second grade when I wrote my first sentence.
The other thing that keeps me going is that I LOVE Arizona and Arizona history and it is my heart’s desire to bring her history to the page through a series of novels. Texas and California get the lion’s share of attention, among others, when it comes to U.S. based historical fiction. I want to see Arizona make her mark too.
That may sound weird, but that’s what drives me.
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“…but before you can get published, you have to write.” Love that! So simple and so true.
I felt the same way the first time I finished a novel. I knew it wasn’t publishable, but it was incredibly satisfying to know I write an entire novel. I loved writing it! I really want to be published one day, but if that never comes to be, I’ll still be making up characters and plots and writing them down. I can’t seem to help it! And I like it that way. :)
This is a beautiful example of celebrating the little things. When consumed with the idea of getting published it is easy to overlook these small, but wonderful reasons to celebrate. Thank you for reminding us of that.
I think that publishing can’t be the holy grail for writers. It can be a goal, but not THE goal. Many authors (some who write for WU) have had absolutely brutal things happen to their books as published authors. Sometimes it seems that getting a contract might not be the best thing for your book or you.
It’s writing that’s the holy grail and the good thing about that is that to find it, all you have to do is do it. Every day.
What a perfect message for the coming new year! So many of us have been so focused on the publishing side of things that we’re forgetting to have fun (excitement, joy, etc.) with the actual writing. A wonderful post!
I can certainly relate. I only started writing last Feb and have so far cranked out ten (10) action/adventure novellas and no one has bought a single one. Do I regret doing it? Not at all. It was as satisfying as you claimed and I learned a lot in the process; language, sentence structure, pacing, exposition, dialog, plot points. Of course it would be nice to get the validation of sales but the key word is still ‘satisfaction’. Maybe the sales will come later. The stories are not going away. They’re like money in the bank.
I am looking forward to typing the end when I get it all tied up in a nice pretty bow. ;-) I have never finished any of the things I started most of them didn’t have an ending they just sort of rambled along telling a tale and another tale. The rejection notice called it episodic plot. :-) This story has a beginning and an end and I’m working on the middle. So hopefully it will all come together and make some sense.
This was so well done – sometimes it’s hard to really nail down why we’re in this crazy life. I especially liked the line of “publishing won’t change their lives but writing could”. Beautiful! I’ll have to look that author, too!
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Right on!
I’m also a big fan of loving the process as much or more than the outcome. I try to work on myself to keep that mentality; otherwise it can be too daunting.
Lovely post. Thank you. :)
Such great reminders! I particularly liked the part about “sitting down and writing a page makes you feel like you can achieve anything”. That is so true, especially on those days when nothing else seems to recognize you’re in charge. LOL But diving into the manuscript makes you feel like you are. :)