Writing from Obligation

I just have stories I want to tell. I'm lucky enough to get paid to tell them.

And that's pretty much it.

Being a writer doesn't imply being *only* a writer.

Write

I don't believe anyone has to write, anymore than they have to eat nine tomatoes before going to bed. As for being a professional, I don't really believe there are people who write fiction, but who don't really want, down inside where it matters, to be professional writers, either.

pconsidine said:

Well, I'd say that five minutes in my head might convince you otherwise, but that's really not relevant to the topic at hand.

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Heh.

As to the topic at hand -- I also have trouble believing someone could write fiction for a living and hate doing it.

On good days it's wonderful, and on the worst days it's still better than any other job I can think of.

JMO, of course.

Nine tomatoes? Nine tomatoes? Who comes up with this stuff? Good lord.

I write because while I have a lot of interests and a lot of things I can do fairly well, writing is the one thing that I've consistently enjoyed doing every day, for fifteen years or so now. That's rare for me. I enjoy writing. I love it. So I write.

That said....I've related this before, but when I was younger, I had it in my head that I was going to be A Professional Writer when I grew up, and that was the end of it. I therefore didn't pursue college even when it was laid out in front of me (because why do I need this extraneous crap? I'm gonna be a writer.) I have, as I've gotten older, come to regret it and consider my younger self an idiot (which is the natural progression.)

So you don't have to only be a writer. You shouldn't be. I think it's better to do something you really enjoy and are good at and write.

Douglas Adams said, and I quote loosely, "For your first novel, you can draw on all your previous life experiences up to that point. For your second novel, you can draw on the previous year spent sitting glumly in bookshops signing things."

Absolutely be something else, and then be a writer on the side. "Professional" doesn't necessarily mean full time. I think that it shouldn't.

And I'd like to also point out that coming to that realization and not outright rejecting it takes a fair bit of guts on your part, and good for you.

pconsidine said:

I don't want to be a professional writer....I had always thought I should be a writer because I had always been told that I should be a writer. I've been hearing it since I was 8 years old.[...]

Is it just me? Are there other creatively talented people who continue to practice their crafts out of some sense of duty to their talent? Or am I the only one?

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No, you're not the only one.

Growing up, I was constantly told that I should become an artist. I liked drawing, and was good at it, and of all the things I did, it was what I was best at.

I wrote stories about places and creatures that had never existed, but everyone thought they were too weird. I got asked, "Where do you come up with crazy stuff like this?" on more than one occasion. My artwork, however, tended to depict more familiar subject matter, so I got a lot of praise and encouragement for it. So I put a huge amount of time and effort into developing my abilities as a painter, and let writing slide.

Being a professional artist sucked all the joy out of making art, however. For every hour of studio time spent making art, I had to put in at least another hour of time trying to sell my work. Getting a fair price for it was incredibly difficult. Doing art on commission was a nightmare. I ended up doing a lot of work that was calculated to please other people, but that I didn't really care about, and I still had a hard time making a living.

Eventually I realized that as skilled a painter as I had become, I no longer wanted to do it for a living. In fact, I had no interest in making art for any other reason but my own enjoyment. It was at about that same time that I realized what I really wanted to do was write.

I have relatives who still think it's such a shame that I'm not pursuing a career as an artist anymore--as if my talent will "go to waste" if I'm not making money at it. They also think I'm wasting my time in writing novels. And that's okay.

I'm the other way.

I was told that my ideas were always great, that my stories were awesome, that I should write. I should be a writer.

I fought that. My history and background didn't really lead to a bohemian life in the "arts" so it was never gonna be anyways, right?

And the more I steered away from it, the more it pulled me back in.

Now I write. I was supposed to do it.

Think about what it is you feel deep down you're supposed to be doing here, grasp that and live it. I'm getting there now, but man, where would I have been today, if I'd started this journey when I was supposed to, way back when?

And like PeeDee says, there's no shame in walking away from something if it isn't for you. Life is too short to work hard at something you hate (or simply doesn't give you the reward you deserve for the effort). Go do something else.

But I bet you end up writing again, somewhere down the road. If only for your own entertainment.

Pcon, I think we might be related...

I am wired the same way--and I, too, could never write for a living. I was often told I was a writer, but also other things, so I still don't know what I'm supposed to 'be'--and I've been supposedly grown up for awhile now.

I write (when I write) because I 'have to'--to get something organized and expressed that's weighing in my head. Other times I foot-drag (for assigned writing). If I don't write from compulsion, I tend to look at it as a chore. But when I write from compulsion, it just flows out, and there's no stopping it. And I love it.

Recognize too that you don't have to "be" one thing in life. You can study more than one field, work in more than one industry. Go where your interests take you. If you do write, those experiences will inform your writing.

Although people always told me I could write well, no one ever told me to be a writer, and it never occurred to me to be one either. After I finished university I realized that my love of writing was something I should do something with (I'd given up writing for several years and was just getting back to it). Yet my day job is not and never has been as a writer.

I've been told since I was about seven years old that I should be a writer. In fact, my journalism teacher told my mom at a conference that I would be a published writer by the time I was 30, and she meant in fiction, not journalism. That's a tough thing for a kid to swallow, but I did. And, I made it my goal to be published by the time I was 30.

Fast forward to now, four months away from my 30th birthday. I'm not even close to being a published fiction writer. It's been hard on me not to reach my goal, as I am a very goal-oriented person, but I've come to realize a few things. I don't have to write just because a teacher told my mom I was going to be published. I don't have to write if I don't want. Well, I do, too, because I work for a newspaper. But, I don't have to write fiction if I don't want to. And, knowing that I don't have to, makes me want to do it even more.

Guess I should clarify (maybe; sure, why not). I'm not saying you should abandon writing altogether. I just think that you should find something else fun to fill up your day, and then write for a couple of hours here and there, when the mood strikes you. Otherwise, every time you sit down to write, you're going to feel like you hafta, and you'll be miserable all the time.

Nope, no pill. And the problem with it seeming like I hafta is that when you're off doing other things that you'd probably really enjoy, you feel like you're not doing the writing that you hafta do. So it winds up tainting everything.

Put it in its place. Find something you enjoy doing, and write on the side, when you want to. Otherwise, you'll produce miserable writing in a state of misery, and when you're not writing, you'll feel like you're not doing what you're supposed to. That's a bleak way to live.

Take a break.

Don't write for a week, six weeks, a year. You decide. If you're happier without the pressure you seem to be putting on yourself, don't come back. If you find that you miss it, might be time to have a heart-to-heart with yourself.

Maybe it's the genre you have settled in. Maybe you need to pick a different dicipline. Maybe you'd have fun with movie scripts. Perhaps comics are the way forward. A ton of interesting research followed by a biography, or a history book.

Ultimate, as a wise writer once wrote... to thine own self be true.

I'm one of those tossers who 'has to' write. And I also happen to love doing it.

You HAVE TO breathe. Do any of you say because you have to, you don't like doing so? Obligation does not necessarily breed boredom with the task you are forced to do. There are some lucky enough to be under some mysterious compulsion who embrace that and love it.

I'm a "hafta" as well, I'm afraid.

I've written and made up stories for as long as I can remember. Then I spent years writing odd bits and pieces, having been thoroughly turned off writing by doing it at uni, and only churned out tiny amounts every so often. It made me miserable, and so in 2005 I did NaNoWriMo (50K in 30 days) to force my hand: either I'd love it or hate it, and it would force me to decide whether I was writing because I wanted to or because I felt I had to.

I hated it. I got horribly behind, I didn't know where I as going, and there were chunks of it that just didn't work. Then it clicked, I did the 50K and I've barely looked back since. I write five days a week (on the way to work and at lunch) but don't force myself to at weekends. It doesn't matter if I don't write every day, just so long as I write.