"I just wish more people would ask themselves what their goal is in writing, because being published is really a bad answer to that question."
Emphatically, yes.
I wrote long before I ever got within smelling distance of publishing. I would write if I never got published again. I feel extremely fortunate that I've been as - well, to use your word for it, as "validated" as I have been so far in my writing life - but writing isn't something I do to prove anything to anybody. I do it because I can't NOT do it. And the reason I've been so fortunate in being published and paid reasonably well is that I've been able to make a living off of it, of sorts, for nearly eight years now. I fully realise how utterly blindingly lucky I am to be able to say this - but I reiterate, once again, if I had published three short stories for the princely sum of twenty dollars apiece in the same time that I've had five books published, I'd still be doing the writing because I want to, because I need to, because I *have* to, and not because I'm actively chasing that publication chimera.
I write because it's air that I breathe. That's as simple as it gets. Ursula le Guin put it best in one of her interviews - she was asked, "What would you be if you weren't a writer?" and she said, "Dead". Yes. That. Word.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-10-24 04:09 am (UTC)Emphatically, yes.
I wrote long before I ever got within smelling distance of publishing. I would write if I never got published again. I feel extremely fortunate that I've been as - well, to use your word for it, as "validated" as I have been so far in my writing life - but writing isn't something I do to prove anything to anybody. I do it because I can't NOT do it. And the reason I've been so fortunate in being published and paid reasonably well is that I've been able to make a living off of it, of sorts, for nearly eight years now. I fully realise how utterly blindingly lucky I am to be able to say this - but I reiterate, once again, if I had published three short stories for the princely sum of twenty dollars apiece in the same time that I've had five books published, I'd still be doing the writing because I want to, because I need to, because I *have* to, and not because I'm actively chasing that publication chimera.
I write because it's air that I breathe. That's as simple as it gets. Ursula le Guin put it best in one of her interviews - she was asked, "What would you be if you weren't a writer?" and she said, "Dead". Yes. That. Word.