Welcome to my 3rd blog post in my continued ‘monthly’ blogs. I’m sticking to the schedule so far, are you impressed? I certainly am!
The past few weeks have been very thought-provoking for me. As I continue writing ‘The Dark Shores’ (second draft) and changing huge chunks of the story here and there, I wonder to myself: why am I even doing such a huge project? Ok, it will satisfy my fan-base as they’ve been waiting on a sequel to ‘A Wizard’s Tears’ for close to 7 years now, but really, genuinely, why do I do it? Why does anybody write? What purpose does it serve?
There have been times I’ve thought about stopping. I’ve got plenty of other things to fill my time, that’s for sure – there are not enough hours in the day, generally. Do people really need another fantasy book clogging up their bookshelf? Well, I suppose that depends on the owner of the bookshelf. People do like to collect things, and I’m no different – I enjoy looking at my bookcases at home and seeing all the books I’ve read (or yet to read).
Readingis certainly an enjoyable pastime, so maybe that’s all the reasons I need – it’s entertainment. Entertaining for me to craft something, certainly satisfying to complete a book, and worthwhile to see others reading it (and even better, liking it!) There’s a lot of genuine ‘good vibes’ about all of that. So is that why I write? Well, partly.
The other side of it, in my mind, is that I’m trying to say something. For years it’s tough for the likes of me to get my point of view across, out there in the real world, my ideas on this world and humanity and all that ensues can be pretty off the wall at times, so maybe the only way I’m going to get it out is to put it on paper. Heck, I’m still learning about life myself…don’t think I’ll ever truly figure it out. So I write to explore my feelings, and those of others, and to actually make a book mean something. I always put a theme into my books, some hidden (or, blatantly obvious to some) messages that I hope will strike a chord with the reader, or make the reader think about something new, a way of looking at things they never did before, perhaps. This is my main reason for writing.
‘TheDark Shores’ is a story all about conscience: what it means to make decisions that can affect everything in your life. Where does conscience come from? Why do some of us have strong urges to ‘do the right thing’, and others have a total lack of regard for rules/laws and prefer to just do what they want to do, and to hell with the consequences? That’s what makes the work interesting, the way I try to put layers in it, challenge my own writing, strive to make things better and bolder than before. It’s not just a story…but then, to those reading it, it simply will be, and there’s no harm in that.
I’d be interested to get feedback from authors on ‘why they write’; I’m sure we all have different and unique reasons for doing so. The good thing is that from all this creativity there comes some fascinating stories, and where would we be without a good story, mmm?