I am a failed writer in the sense that I have never had my fiction professionally published. These posts, which will run on most Fridays, are an attempt to keep myself creatively motivated and just generally discuss the creative process from someone trying to figure it out. I genuinely love the process of making things — any things, from writing to drawing to music to woodworking to baking. Maybe my own failures can be a source of amusement or interest to others.
The idea that I am ever going to be traditionally published is rather silly. Even assuming I can write books that people want to read — something yet to be demonstrated — I have a host of detrimental characteristics pushing me away from being published. I am a middle-aged person, so I wouldn’t have many potential decades of career. I write, largely, in genres that do not command large readerships from traditional publishers. I have no significant platform and nothing in my background makes me stand out in away. My odds are low. So why do I bother?
Because it is fun. More than that, it is essential to my humanity.
Creating things is at the heart of being human. We see this in small children, before the criticism and the constant reminders that they have to be good to be allowed to create overwhelm their inherent creativity. Give a young child a box of crayons or a pencil and a stack of paper, and you will very soon have more drawings than you know what to do with or a story or both. Creation is baked into humanity at an almost cellular level. Even when people are pushed away from what we think of traditional creativity by the constant drumbeat that it is reserved only for the best of the best or by the circumstances of having to make your way in a capitalist hellscape, they still create.
Every person who has a garden. Every person who doodles in their notes. Every person who is obsessed with home decoration. Every person who does weekend woodwork in their garage. Every person who builds little programs for their own amusement. All of these people are finding expression for their natural creativity as best they can. They may never make a dime from their efforts, btu that is not the point. They do these things because something inside them compels them to create something. You can no more remove creativity from human beings than you can stop them breathing.
That is why I write: it is an outlet for something that is essential to me being a person. Am I going to be successful at it? Likely not. I am, after all, a failure. But the process, the act of creation, makes me a healthier, happier, better person than I would otherwise be if I did not write.
Weekly Word Count
Zilch.
Ironic, given the rest of this post, no?
I got some feedback about the current novel and am using that to go over two works in progress, the script and another novel, and trying to apply the feedback to those pieces as well as the book itself. It has largely been about planning and thinking this week.