I'll Give You What For

There comes a time – there just about has to, for all authors – when you ask yourself: why am I doing this? Perhaps some of you, reading about everything I’m going through on the revision of my book, are asking that of me. There is the broad question why do I/you write which may be easier to answer, at least tritely, with: “Oh, I just love writing,” or “I love words” or “I can’t see myself doing anything else!” All of which, to some extent or another, are true with me. I do love writing, and words, and I intend to write this series whether it gets published or not.

But I think a far more interesting and focused question is: “Why are you writing this, particular piece?” Why have I spent this many years of my life working on this novel? Why don’t I abandon it instead of hacking and slashing and rewriting, hour upon hour? Some authors I’ve spoken with talk about characters in their head that won’t go away, and clamor to be put on paper. This, to me, can be somewhat frightening, really; kind of like organized schizophrenia. Others, while having characters, have stories too that won’t leave their minds unless committed to paper. This is approaching a more stomach-able approach, but still borders on the haphazard.

Oh, I admit, there are far “better” stories than mine that have come about by one or both of these processes; but, as I’ve put in quotations, “better” is the operative word. Why are they better? Do they evoke emotion more strongly? Are they more poetic? (By the way, I must do a blog some time about the inordinate privilege given to poetry, but I digress.) Are they more “real”? Are they more true?

Perhaps: but what is it that they do? Why does literature exist? It is a pointless question to ask a true post-modernist, but still a legitimate question I think. In critical analysis, there is what’s called “intentional fallacy,” meaning that trying to ascribe intention to the author is fallacious, because a work of literature exists between the book and the reader. Whatever the author penned is largely irrelevant (though not totally) and what is of true importance is what the reader takes away from the story.

While not entirely subscribing to this theory (insofar as I understand it, that is), it holds some legitimate points; namely, the reader should – if reading it properly – come away with something. The question I have to ask the author, in the throes of character-tantrums and stories that won’t go away, is what are readers going to come away with?

And that’s why I’m writing this story, and why I will write the rest of these stories; because people need to hear it. Their ears are so full of crap from popular media, they need to be shown what I have to tell. But what about not getting published, I hear you ask? Well, I can’t do much about that. But until these words stop knocking against my teeth, I won’t stop writing. And revising. And querying.

See you Friday.