Why Do You Write?

February 20, 2008

I struggle with this question all the time. Of course, I write for a living, ie., for money.

But why write fiction? There's more money in nonfiction at almost every level unless you're a bestseller.

I was part of a panel of mystery authors this summer at the Romeo Public Library here in Michigan and one of the authors said, "I can't imagine not writing fiction. It's how I process life."

Which I thought nailed it pretty nicely.

And I'll admit that "winning" the BookEnds contest was a nice pat-on-the-back, but what it did more than anything else was remind me that writing fiction is about more (for me) than simply money.

I'm not always sure what it is about for me, but it's more than just money. (Money's nice, don't kid yourself. It may be the ultimate affirmation of your ability, whether we want to admit it or not). It's about nourishing my soul, if you will, or processing life, or activating a part of my brain that doesn't get used quite as well except when I'm writing fiction. It's about feeding dreams (about money and fame and about "art" and all that sort of stuff) and maybe it's about being part of something larger than yourself, whether that's a writing community or "literature" or, I sometimes think, as Tobias Buckell put it so eloquently, "literature is humanity's subconscious," and by writing fiction I am actively contributing to that.

How about you? Why do you write?

Cheers,

Mark Terry