Why do Writers Write?

Why Do Writers Write?

 ‘From a very early age, perhaps the age of five or six, I knew that when I grew up I should be a writer. Between the ages of about seventeen and twenty-four I tried to abandon this idea, but I did so with the consciousness that I was outraging my true nature and that sooner or later I should have to settle down and write books…

All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one was not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. For all one knows that demon is simply the same instinct that makes a baby squall for attention.’

George Orwell wrote this in 1947, but it only came to my attention last night. Nobody ever accused me of rushing in to be first in the queue!

Hmm! There’s a certain familiarity here. Why do we writers write? It’s not for the money, is it? It’s hard work, anti-social behaviour – of the most genteel kind – and ultimately doomed to disappointment as every writer I’ve ever come across retains a sense of feeling they could have improved on the final version. 

I’ve written, in the most precise sense of the activity, for most of my life. Poetry, plays, the odd stab at fiction, but it was only when I decided to write a novel that I took it seriously. A good friend writes for the BBC, writes film scripts and stage plays: a proper writer who earns his living in this manner. He told me recently he couldn’t entertain the thought of writing a novel. Too much work.

Well, he’s right there. It is hard, unrelenting labour and the task gets harder with every completed chapter. All those characters rampaging around the inside of your skull; all of them imaginary yet we know them better than we know the next-door-neighbours. 

The crucial stage of writing a novel is that moment where the story comes to life. In an instant, it all makes sense. There’s a purpose to it all, you understand where it’s going and you know what it’s all about. It becomes real. It becomes exciting. You get inside the heads of your characters; they’re not strangers any more. You understand their motivations, their desires, and their needs. It’s a magical time, full of wonder. At that point, writing ceases to be a chore and becomes a pleasure.

Getting to this point is a struggle. A battle. Lost, uncertain, bereft of inspiration – I’ve battled these demons of doubt on a daily basis. Then, often without warning, it all kicks into place. You can’t type fast enough; thoughts, ideas, pour out and there aren’t enough hours in the day to write. I’ve yet to reach this Utopia with the books I’m (occasionally) still working on. Three of them, all with about 50,000 or so words ‘in the bank.’ That’s not even mentioning the book I really want to write.

We don’t all have George Orwell’s talent, but we share his opinions. Writing is a compulsion, an itch that has to be scratched or it becomes unbearable. Who are they for, these outpourings of the soul? Friends? Family? Oneself? Harper Collins? Who are we trying to please? Are we just ‘babies squalling for attention’ as Orwell suggests?

Does that matter? Whatever the reason, writing is necessary. On my, long since defunct, Facebook page I included a quotation attributed to George Ade – “After being Turned Down by numerous Publishers, he had decided to write for Posterity.” 

I may now add a quotation from one of my favourite writers, a master of the short story and a wonderful poet, Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo, usually shortened to just Jorge Luis Borges – “The flattery of posterity is not worth much more than contemporary flattery, which is worth nothing.” Exactly!