Why I Write
As requested by ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
domynoe, my responses to the Why I Write meme...
I write because I can't imagine not writing.
I go through my day-to-day life, and I make up stories about the people and the things around me. I create my own little versions about why that woman is shopping in that store, why that child is sulking, why that man is screaming into his cell-phone. I also find bits and pieces of information, and I think - Wow, this is too cool not to share. Sometimes those data surface from my formal research work as a librarian, sometimes they're the result of overheard conversations, sometimes they're the product of a trip to a museum, reading a book, watching a television show....
All of these bits and pieces just need to be glued together. It's sort of like piecing a quilt out of fabric scraps. I enjoy manipulating the parts into a new whole. I enjoy creating new shapes, new patterns, new ways of seeing the world around me.
When I don't write, I get cranky. I become anxious. I feel like I haven't exercised, or like I've eaten too much sugar without enough protein. Like something is missing.
There've been plenty of times when I've vowed I'm never going to write again. I've said that I don't have the time, or the fortitude, that I can hit my own head against the wall thank you very much; I don't need editors to do it for me.
But the next day, or the day after, or the day after that, I find myself thinking, "Wouldn't that make an interesting story?" Or "I would love to figure out who that woman really is." Or "It would be fun to tell a story where ..."
So, I write.
What makes you write? (If you do. And if you don't, what makes you read? And if you don't, what are you doing reading this blog?)
domynoe, my responses to the Why I Write meme...I write because I can't imagine not writing.
I go through my day-to-day life, and I make up stories about the people and the things around me. I create my own little versions about why that woman is shopping in that store, why that child is sulking, why that man is screaming into his cell-phone. I also find bits and pieces of information, and I think - Wow, this is too cool not to share. Sometimes those data surface from my formal research work as a librarian, sometimes they're the result of overheard conversations, sometimes they're the product of a trip to a museum, reading a book, watching a television show....
All of these bits and pieces just need to be glued together. It's sort of like piecing a quilt out of fabric scraps. I enjoy manipulating the parts into a new whole. I enjoy creating new shapes, new patterns, new ways of seeing the world around me.
When I don't write, I get cranky. I become anxious. I feel like I haven't exercised, or like I've eaten too much sugar without enough protein. Like something is missing.
There've been plenty of times when I've vowed I'm never going to write again. I've said that I don't have the time, or the fortitude, that I can hit my own head against the wall thank you very much; I don't need editors to do it for me.
But the next day, or the day after, or the day after that, I find myself thinking, "Wouldn't that make an interesting story?" Or "I would love to figure out who that woman really is." Or "It would be fun to tell a story where ..."
So, I write.
What makes you write? (If you do. And if you don't, what makes you read? And if you don't, what are you doing reading this blog?)
Of course, my father was a writer and talked over plot and characters and whatever with my mother at the dinner table. And their friends were couples where one if not both were writers of one kind or another. So I grew up thinking that was how the world was.
catherine_holm
cat
Yes, exactly!
Oh. And I never got around to saying: I thought your Glasswright series seriously rocked! (which is, my oblique way of saying why I'm reading this blog *grin*)
Re: Yes, exactly!
(Anonymous)
Story fragments
My head is filled with all sorts interesting ideas for Sci-Fi/Fantasy type stories, including this one recurrent theme which was in some way inspired by Rani Trader's trial before the King and the subsequent execution of her brother at the end of The Glasswrights' Apprentice. There would appear to be two or three different novels swirling around in the eddies of my tormented consciousness, since I can't quite connect them all into a single coherent whole.
Come to think of it, I've been very cranky these past few years .... :-)
Bob Shepard of Denver
Re: Story fragments
Invisible Children is getting a lot of press right now. Yes, Crestman and Sin Hazar's army were modeled, loosely, after the children's armies in Uganda (and other African countries.) I'd read a couple of long articles about them and was overwhelmed by the impact those experiences must have on a child.
I hope that you'll stick around here, commenting early and often!
Mindy