Ten Questions
August 14, 2007 by Shirley Allard
Why do we write? What is it that drives thousands of us to the keyboard each day to put down what we’re thinking or not thinking? Why do we feel the need to pour our hearts out to perfect strangers and tell them all our troubles? Do they even care? Are they so bored that they need someone else’s problems to dwell on? Are we so bored that we’re willing to spend our time writing about other people’s problems? Is it because we can’t sing? What would happen to the world if we stopped writing? Could it possibly go on without us? Is that ten? Can I stop now?
It’s all about footprints, in my opinion. Each of us would like posterity to know we were here.
we write because we think
we write because some sing and some shout and some drink and some kill and some save and some love and some hate and some preach…
we write because there is an insatiable need within us to reveal some aspect to light
some do care, some do not
some need to revel in the discourse of others and some need to see that others have discourse and not feel alone
I am often pretty friggin bored (when I’m at work)
If I were to sing I would get paid lots of money… not to
If we all stopped writing we would all be seriously even more bored
Without us there would be no universe
11 total
yes
Bob, you’re probably right. But, I’m beginning to think that blogging is not the way to immortality as people only tend to read what you wrote today. If it’s not in print it is floating around in cyberspace and who will ever turn the page?
As for you Oz…get a new job! How can you get bored working for the government? Well, on second thought, I understand that part! Sorry I went over my own quota…I just write, I don’t count so well!
You’re absolutely correct about the blogosphere. However, the pathway to publication is fraught with minefields and hangers-on and those poised with hands out in their eternal quest for material enrichment. Is there a compromise? Is there an intermediary? Evidently not… I recall the words of a professor I once had… in the world of academia, it’s “publish or perish”, and I wonder if this may not be the reason that so many of us are relegated to a secondary tier, if you will.
Apparently so. And, it’s free! But, I have come across so many writers that could and should publish and seem to have given up. What is the magic formula? Why is it so hard to publish a book in this country? Aha! Marry the publisher’s daughter! Once again as you have said in the past it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.