For Love or Money

My writing partner Elizabeth has started a writing club in her local community.  I am really thrilled, since having others to share the enthusiasm for the craft is one of the most fulfilling aspects of life that I can imagine.  Talking with fellow writers has been my panacea and placebo for many years.

In a pique over my own lack of progress, I followed up on the many places where I’ve submitted material and have heard nothing in return.  Perhaps a dozen literary magazines regularly reply when you submit something.  The rest will just leave you wondering.

As I was crawling over websites looking for any evidence that my submissions might still be alive, it occurred to me that I write for myself.  As another friend once said, we write what we can’t find anybody else writing.  I do it knowing that most of it will never be published.

There is a difference between writing for personal fulfillment and writing for publication.  

My writing is hard to classify.  I sometimes call it “horror,” but it really isn’t that.  Fantasy?  No, George R. R. Martin and J. R. R. Tolkien have claimed all of that territory.  Speculative fiction?  That may fit best, but there is a strong literary element.  I’m creating art.

Writing for publication, on the other hand, has to be intentional.  You find what the readers will buy and you write for those readers.  As one critic once said, readers don’t like to have to work for the rewards.  There are too many other writers out there who will give them what they want.

I think I would be much happier if I could resign myself to the fact that I write for myself.  Others may find my thoughts worth reading—a few editors out there seem to “get” what I’m saying about my experience in the world.  Not many.  Not any with money.

When I get frustrated about all of this I stop and ask myself: for whom do I write?  I am taking my soul and spreading it out on paper for others to see, but I have little control over their tastes.  I’m writing because I’m a writer.

Writers imply readers.  And writing clubs with sympathetic readers are good places to be.  Way to go, Elizabeth!  Write for yourself!  Don’t let anyone railroad you into believing that published writing is any better than that we know, in our hearts, is more valuable than money.