Why We Write: The List

I’ve been doing these Why We Write posts for a while now, so before I add more authors to the list (and I have plenty to add), I thought I should do a little combo of all of them. Call it an opportunity for readers to get caught up. Call it a craven attempt at added hits and blog traffic. Call it anything.

So, here we go! Below are the quotes and links to my inane little comments on them:

Don Delillo:

“Writing is a form of personal freedom. It frees us from the mass identity we see in the making all around us. In the end, writers will write not to be outlaw heroes of some underculture but mainly to save themselves, to survive as individuals.”

Blaise Pascal:

“Everything that is written merely to please the author is worthless.”

Tom Wolfe:

I think I am starving for publication: I love to get published; it maddens me not to get published. I feel at times like getting every publisher in the world by the scruff of the neck, forcing his jaws open, and cramming the Mss down his throat — ‘God-damn you, here it is – I will and must be published.’

You know what it means – you’re a writer and you understand it. It’s not just ‘the satisfaction of being published.’ Great God! It’s the satisfaction of getting it out, or having that, so far as you’re concerned, gone through with it! That good or ill, for better or for worse, it’s over, done with, finished, out of your life forever and that, come what may, you can at least, as far as this thing is concerned, get the merciful damned easement of oblivion and forgetfulness.

John Updike:

“I want to write books that unlock the traffic jam in everybody’s head.”

Joseph Heller:

“Every writer I know has trouble writing.”

Ray Bradbury:

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”

E.B. White:

“All writing is both a mask and an unveiling.”

George Orwell:

“Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.”

Graham Greene:

“Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.”

There you go folks! Check out all the links for author photos and comments. And as I said earlier, I’ll keep adding to this list. It’s inspiring to me, so hopefully it is to some of you as well.

C.T.

Related articles

• Active Writing cultivates new Material. (wordsmithsix.wordpress.com)
• Write What You Know (cultofajracewood.wordpress.com)
• Raising a Writer (nhwn.wordpress.com)
• dreams and reality (unremarkableman.wordpress.com)

Why We Write: Joseph Heller

“Every writer I know has trouble writing.” ~Joseph Heller

Joseph Heller (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Well that’s good to know! So I’m not alone.

It’s a simple statement, but it hits on a key idea: writing shouldn’t be easy. No, I’m not talking about the simple putting together of an email or a wedding Thank You note. I’m talking about writing with purpose and depth. (Yes, that for which I strive, but often miss.)

We all have had the image in our minds of the tortured novelist or poet, at his desk in the dark of night, pulling his hair in frustration and breaking his pencils. The pained look on his face that our minds paint almost screams “writer.” The two go hand in hand: pain and creating.

Of course, let’s not go too far with our image. It’s not all bad. (If it were, we would have all given up long ago, right?) And once you break through that writer’s block and get a good gush of creativity pouring out onto your page, you realize that it’s all worth it. (Until the writer’s block comes back, and you’re pulling your hair out again.)

As the old Jefferson quote goes, “Anything worth having is worth fighting for.” And with my apologies to President Jefferson, I’ll gently mangle his quote for us writers: Anything worth being read by a paying audience is worth struggle and hardship. Honestly, do you really want it to be easy?

C.T.

Related articles

• New Writing Quotes (chillersandthrillers.com)
• Comic Struggles Of A Frustrated Writer In ‘Zoo Time’ (npr.org)