by Stephen on Jun 27th, 2007
I have my fingers in the socket and smoke coming off my head – in the painful way, and the thrilling way. Writing a book. I sometimes… no, often wonder what drives writers to do what they do. Sometimes it seems so bizarre, this drive/desire/compulsion to expend so much time and energy fixating on people and situations that don’t actually exist! I mean I see the appeal from the other side – it’s great fun getting lost in fiction i.e. reading it. But making it? It’s strange. Writers are strange.
That said, I love it. Except when I hate it. Sometimes it’s what I live for. Except when it’s killing me. This all sounds melodramatic, but I hope someone out there relates. If you do, you are strange too. But that’s okay.
Hmm, I suddenly feel this pressure to use a few proper nouns, so that this will be tagged. Well, okey-dokey, I read that, after decades of writing, Henry James decided that fiction was pointless and abandoned it to solely write poetry. Anyone have any thoughts on that?
» read more