At some
point anyone who has ever put pen to paper, banged away on a typewriter, or tapped
the keys of a computer in an effort to string together words into a story have
probably wondered why they do what they do. In Why We Write Meredith Maran strings together a series of interviews
with “acclaimed” although not all bestselling, authors as to why they do what
they do.
Why the mix
of authors leans heavily towards those who ply their trade as literary writers
versus those who are bestselling, or more commercial writers, there is a level
of commonality that they share. Often it boils down to the simple fact that
they have a story in them that just has to come out.
One of the
most interesting segments comes from Walter Mosley, the bestselling author of
the Easy Rawlins series (among others) who laments that he is pigeonholed by
his fiction success, while he has non-fiction stories and screenplays that he
has put down on paper. While most would be content with Mosley’s level of
success, he clearly has a desire to expand his scope.
The bottom
line is there is nothing truly groundbreaking in the response to the book’s
title question; most write because they feel the need to get a story out or they
simply don’t know how to do anything else. Writing is simply the vehicle they
use to get their creative mojo on.
No comments:
Post a Comment