Thoughts for Writers or Wannabes

[the_gneech]

Snagged from lythandra:

Neil Gaiman Journal: On Writing

If you want to be a writer, write. You may have to get a day job to keep body and soul together (I cheated, and got a writing job, or lots of them, to feed me and pay the rent). If you aren't going to be a writer, then go and be something else. It's not a god-given calling. There's nothing holy or magic about it. It's a craft that mostly involves a lot of work, most of it spent sitting making stuff up and writing it down, and trying to make what you have made up and written down somehow better.

I think for me the tipping point was when I was a very young man. It was late at night, and I was lying in bed, and I thought, as I often thought, "I could be a writer. It's what I want to be. I think it's what I am." And then I imagined myself in my eighties, possibly even on my deathbed, thinking that same thought, in a life when I'd never written anything. And I'd be an old man, with my life behind me, still telling myself I was really a writer -- and I would never know if I was kidding myself or not.

-TG

Comments

[kesh.livejournal.com]

*sigh* This is what depresses me. I know I can write... I've done it before. The trouble is, every time I read a comment like this from a good writer it says the same thing: you have to be driven to write.

I'm not. I don't have this terrible, gnawing hunger to write. I don't seem to have the ambition to be a good writer.

I guess I just don't have what it takes. And all these ideas in my head will drive me nuts. :/

Re:

[bauske.livejournal.com]

Seems you've got talent for writing. If you get the urge to write, or type as it is in most cases nowadays, then do so. It's kind of the same thing with myself and art. I love it, and when I draw I'm happy, but I have to be in the mood for it. It has to strike me and make me think, "I really want to grab a pencil and start drawing everything that's on my mind." I usually pick up inspiration from other people's artwork. Looking at their art inspires me to draw my own. I don't know if that's the same for writing or not, but I do know that when I read something that is extremely well written and thought out, it makes me think, "being a writer would be a wonderful job."

I suppose it's determined by how you see life. Is the glass half full or half empty? Personally, reading that snippet Gneech posted got me inspired yet again. I love it when people express their feelings as well as this did.

Re:

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

If you wonder whether the glass is half full or half empty, then you are missing the most important detail of all - the fact that you need to flag down the bartender to refill your drink! :)

Re:

[jim-lane.livejournal.com]

HAW!!!

(And good luck with the big story. Sorry you didn't get much response---I didn't see your request for feedback until too late---but that's kind of how it goes in the "writin' biz". People won't give you feedback to save their soul...but then they'll gripe and whine when YOU shelve a project *due to lack of feedback*---)

Regards!

Re: everyday I write the book

[wbwolf.livejournal.com]

I, too, consider myself a writer (as sure as hell can't draw...), but my ideas only come in fits and starts. I think the other issue I have is I'll get an idea, but I can't stay focused on it enought to develop a plot.

Which makes me primary screen play writer material. ]:oD

Something Different

[rowyn]

every time I read a comment like this from a good writer it says the same thing: you have to be driven to write

"No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money." -- Samuel Johnson

So, not all writers think you have to be driven by a love of writing or a burning desire to put words on paper. :)

Next paragraph

[laurie-robey.livejournal.com]

So I thought it might be better to go off and be a writer, even if what I learned from the experience was that I wasn't a writer. At least that way, I'd know.

I also particularly liked this paragraph because it describes perfectly why I went to film school. I knew that if I went, tried, and decided to give up and switch to something else, then I'd know for sure instead of wondering for the rest of my life what it would have been like, never having tried. (And I haven't given up yet, btw. I'm just taking my own route.)