Sunday, April 12, 2015

Why Write?



The reasons for making the decision to become a writer are varied and totally dependent on what the person hopes to achieve. The requirements to becoming not just a great author but a successful author in my opinion are simply up to chance and money shouldn’t be the driving factor. Of course earning currency would be nice but having a great story is what’s important and expressing it a way that is enjoyable to the reader is equally necessary. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve read a story that in concept is absolutely fantastic but utterly disastrous in execution, this includes spelling and grammar errors. A big reason why I’ve abandoned reading many a book halfway through!

Also if you think readers can’t tell that you rushed through a story simply for the sake of writing it guess again. 

It was with these pet peeves in mind that I included them in my reasons for even attempting to write my first book. I’ve always been told I was good at writing or more accurately expressing a thought but that in no way means I could be good at coming up with a great story that someone wants to read (in fact I’m still not convinced that I am). I did know that I wanted to do something that I loved and as it turns out its this.

I found myself looking forward to the weekends when I could put on my writing socks (yes apparently I need to write with sock on…), lean back in bed pillows propped behind my back with laptop in hand (actually on my lap…), television on ‘How I Met Your Mother’ reruns and just tell a story. I also found that I liked allowing the story to lead me taking me away totally from where I thought it would go when I first started. This isn’t to say that I didn’t have a draft of story points in my trusty ‘ideas book’ but it guided what I was going to write it didn’t define it.

I’m about to self-publish this first offering and I’m finding out all the things along the way that you need to consider which can be mind boggling at times, maybe sharing my experiences will make the process less overwhelming for others. 

At this point I have no idea where writing will take me but I do hope that somebody out there would enjoy the effort I put into making a book, I enjoyed the effort in creating it.

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