Why We Write · 8:57am Jul 16th, 2017
Why do we write?
It's a question that is both easy and hard to answer. Every person that writes has a different reason for it. Some people write for themselves. Others write for money. And some write for an audience.
There's something that I've been wondering about recently, and the answer has finally become clear.
Why do I write?
The answer? To entertain and give to others.
Writing is something that I love because I can entertain others, give them something alike to a gift. That is why I write. I do it so that people can enjoy the things that I write so that I can put people on the edge of their seats, give them something to do in their off-time, or simply invoke emotions.
And recently, I also had another revelation. In my first blog, I described my fear of writing something and failing at it. I've almost overcome that fear. Something else came with it though, a need for constant approval to validate me. I used the likes on my story to fill that role. I saw the ratio of Likes to Dislikes on Not a Crazed Gunman almost got to 30:1, but someone else disliked it, and my heart sank... but only for a moment. I took a second to think about it and realized something very important.
I don't write for the people who don't like my stories, I write for the people who do like my stories.
A quote by John Green summarizes all of this perfectly.
"Every single day, I get emails from aspiring writers asking my advice about how to become a writer, and here is the only advice I can give: Don’t make stuff because you want to make money — it will never make you enough money. And don’t make stuff because you want to get famous — because you will never feel famous enough. Make gifts for people — and work hard on making those gifts in the hope that those people will notice and like the gifts.
Maybe they will notice how hard you worked, and maybe they won’t — and if they don’t notice, I know it’s frustrating. But, ultimately, that doesn’t change anything — because your responsibility is not to the people you’re making the gift for, but to the gift itself."
- John Green
