Why do writers write? I write because I can't help it. The characters that fill my imagination deserve for their stories to be told. What of other writers? Are they compelled like me or are there other reasons? Is it an outlet for their imagination? Do they want to leave something of themselves behind, or perhaps to educate? I posed the question to five bestselling authors and here they reveal just what it is that urges them to write.
Barbara Hannay, Award-winning Romance Author:
I write because I can't help it. I'm just wired that way. Even before I learned handwriting, I was making up stories for my little sisters - drawings on sheets of paper that I passed through the slats of orange boxes, my version of 'movies'. When I joined the Brownies, the first badge I earned was the writer's badge.Throughout my school days, I wrote anything - poetry, stories, magazine articles, all for my own enjoyment. Later, when my children came along, I made little story books for them, which they illustrated. So, you see, I couldn't help myself and once I discovered the romance genre, it seemed my destiny was sealed.
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| Available now at: https://www.amazon.com/Country-Wedding-Barbara-Hannay-ebook/dp/B06Y1HVNV5/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8 |
Fiona Lowe, Award-winning Romance Author:
I ask myself this question A LOT. Especially when I am starting a book as I don't start well. Many authors are addicted to the start as they get high octane excitement that carries them forward as ideas pop. I, on the other hand, find the start like wading through mud. It isn't until later that story strands come together. I am addicted to the ending and the buzz that comes from a sense of achievement. As the last two books I've written have been 500 pages, I'm a bit in awe that I've managed to write that many words. That's what tricks me into starting again.
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Annie Seaton, Award-winning Romance Author:
Ever since I was a small child, I loved reading. I always carried a book with me and had many confiscated from beneath the desk in my school days. The desire to write blossomed within me as I read, and I knew that I had stories to tell. I promised myself that I would be an author one day. Fast forward many years. The desire to write was overtaken by higher education, marriage, children and career. Six years ago an incident in the workplace led to some deep reflection on what I wanted out of life. I wanted to be in a place where there was truth, integrity and justice. Resigning to take up full-time writing was a very ambitious move for someone who hadn't written a creative word for many years. Six years after that life change I am in the place I want to be, writing my twenty-seventh book and contracted with a traditional publisher. My latest release is Come Back to Me.
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| Available at: books2read.com/u/3yZ1Zl |
Alison Stuart, Historical Romance Author:
I write because I can't imagine myself NOT writing.The compulsion for storytelling has been with me since I was a child and nurtured through school by some wonderful teachers and a like-minded friend. However, it was only later in life, following a ski accident, that I sat down in a deserted ski chalet with snow falling outside and started to write a story that had been tugging at my sleeve for many years. It became my compulsion and my joy as I lost myself in the characters I knew so well. I discovered the delight of building long lost worlds and manipulating the lives of my imaginary friends. This joy and this compulsion is something I haven't lost, even several books later. In short, I write because I love to weave tales...(and I would never have believed that first story I wrote would become part of the Guardians of the Crown trilogy).
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| Available at: books2read.com/GOTC) |
Tess Woods, Women's Fiction Author:
I write because I love story telling. I come from a long line of story tellers, the large extended family I grew up in loved nothing more than to sit around and listen to funny stories and anecdotes told with lots of flair and embellishments. I began creative writing almost as soon as I could hold a pencil but lost the desire late in high school. Then came university, love, marriage, career, babies - lots of distractions. I satisfied my love of literature by reading through those years but something deep inside me pulled me back into writing after twenty years away from it and I'm glad I listened to that inner voice. Because for me story telling is what I was born to do and writing gets those stories out of my head so I can connect with others through them.
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There you have it. From feeling a sense of achievement to having stories to tell the reasons writers write are many and varied, but they have one common thread. Writers can't not write. Writing is their passion, their joy. It's a need to express themselves that they can't help but fulfill.
Are you compelled to write? Why?
Love to Love: that I'm soon heading off to a writers' retreat!
Love to Laugh: at funny photos
Love to Learn: about the many different ways that writers head down the 'author' path.
Thank you for including me, Enisa. I loved reading everyone's stories and it seems we all write because they cannot imagine not writing!!!
ReplyDeleteHi Alison. Thanks for sharing your reasons. I think there must a gene common to writers that just makes us want to write!
DeleteHuge thanks to the lovely authors who contributed to this post. Your explanations of why you write are inspiring and I greatly enjoyed reading them all. Thank you so much for sharing.
ReplyDeleteI'm also a writer who feels compelled to write. I have to get these stories out of my head and onto the page (even if it drives me mad at times :)).
Thank you to each of the authors who so willingly answered my question. Your responses show writers simply have a compulsion to write. A need they can't ignore.
ReplyDeleteAs an author my self I am always interested in other writers and how they came to become writers. It is interesting that most of them have been writing since childhood. That was me too. I still have my half typed half hand written ms from when I was about 14years old.
ReplyDeleteHi Enisa, thanks for a fabulous post and thank you to all the authors who contributed to it. I write because I love the challenge of creating something new.
ReplyDelete