Too Much Reading About Writing

[mightyutuvan]

     So after taking a break from writing, I am back.  I call it taking a break but really life's interferences combined with my own temper tantrum and viola, I quit writing anything not work related for five months.  Writer's get to be temperamental, right?  

     So my question to you is... do you find reading too much about writing counterproductive?  On second thought, I guess it is really reading about the publishing process.  I will be cranking along, writing everyday (never the word count I should though).  Inevitably, I will end up reading something or listening to a writing podcast and the topic of getting published comes up.  Listening to published authors speak about the difficulties of getting published just depresses me.

     Don't get me wrong, I have no thoughts of getting rich or becoming best selling author but it would seem the logical conclusion to writing a story would be to get it published.  So does this happen to you?

    

[meg_evonne]

I've said it before, but I will again.  Write because you must, because you can't stop, because something inside you won't let you stop.  Writing is its own reward.  I went over 35 years and let no one read my material.  I never thought to ask to be honest. I never queried until three years ago.  Might also want to brush up on your 'to', 'too', and 'two' as well.  That was a friendly jab.  Hugs and write on mighty!

[mightyutuvan]

Thanks for the jab, corrected .  

     Friendly question for you.  Having lurked here for about a year, I have seen your comment about writing being some sort of built-in impulse (I am paraphrasing).  I have spent 35 years not writing.  I have been doing other things.  Now I want to write.  I just want to tell some stories.  Hopefully some fun, entertaining stories with some "Big, damn hero" moments in them.  I am not sure I meet your definition of this "writing for it's own sake" writer.  I guess my question is this, what is the point of writing a story, poem, song etc.. if you don't share it with people?  Seems to me getting published is the natural lifecycle for a story to pursue.  

(Note:  I used the word "publish", however I should mention that sharing a story with anyone would meet this need.  The more people shared with, the more the story's existence would be validated, metaphysically speaking)

[daranthered]

I once had a teacher ask my what writing resources I used.  I showed her my "Writing Tools" bookmark folder.  She did something I had never done; she counted them all.  There were over two hundred sites.  Not counting things like "Elements of style," Stephen King's, "On Writing," etc.  A lot of the advice contradicted one another.

She helped me narrow it down to five general, and five genre specific resources.  I am much happier with that little world.  I am a much happier and more productive writer. 

It's pretty easy to overload yourself.  My primary motivation as a writer is to convey the stories in my head to people who want to read them.  And to do that with a measure of craftsmanship.  To that end, I try to pick a set of tools that help me bring out my natural talents.

That doesn't mean I don't still read about how other people write.  I am, after all in this area of the forums.  I'm just not very quick to adopt a whole new outlook based on something new I've read.

[Kali]

 I guess my question is this, what is the point of writing a story, poem, song etc.. if you don't share it with people?  Seems to me getting published is the natural lifecycle for a story to pursue.  

(Note:  I used the word "publish", however I should mention that sharing a story with anyone would meet this need.  The more people shared with, the more the story's existence would be validated, metaphysically speaking)

If you don't mind someone else chiming in, I'm much of the same mindset as meg.  I *have* put a few things out there to be read, and sent off, I think, 4 stories in 10 years to be published (they weren't, but I sent them).  But I write a LOT.  Most of it stays on my hard drive.  I just don't get that publishing thing.  I have to write, I can't not write. If I'm not writing, I'm not happy.  But publishing is optional, and, as I have rediscovered quite recently, worrying about all the crap that goes along with publishing will murder any desire I have to write.  I'm talkin' cold-blooded, in-its-sleep, my-god-look-at-all-the-blood murder.

I do strive to write the best stories I can.  I try to write three-dimensional characters with real problems to go along with all the surreal ones, all that good stuff.  But good writing isn't all it takes to get published.  There are practical, real world issues that intrude and when I take those into account, I suddenly couldn't give a damn about what I'm writing. I was 65,000 words into a novel when I suddenly realized that the reason I was having so many problems with it was that it wasn't fun anymore.  I've been writing Urban Fantasy for years, since the 1980s, and yet when I finally decided I should try to get my own novel published, I couldn't force myself to finish it.

So the short answer to your question is, the point is that I love doing it.  I love actually sitting down and typing and making up worlds for these people in my head.  I love putting them through their paces, finding out how they're gonna get out of the situations I put them in.  I guess, to put it another way, I love to write for the same reasons I love to read, except I don't have to wait for a year between stories.

Now, if I could somehow do that and not think about publishing, maybe I'd be published.   But the wordcount thing always trips me up...

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

     So after taking a break from writing, I am back.  I call it taking a break but really life's interferences combined with my own temper tantrum and viola, I quit writing anything not work related for five months.  Writer's get to be temperamental, right? 

Generally not successful ones....

So my question to you is... do you find reading too much about writing counterproductive?

No.  It may tell me something useful, it may tell me something to avoid, it may just tell me "this bit of this person's process does not work like mine", but it's all research.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

It's pretty easy to overload yourself.  My primary motivation as a writer is to convey the stories in my head to people who want to read them.  And to do that with a measure of craftsmanship.  To that end, I try to pick a set of tools that help me bring out my natural talents.
That doesn't mean I don't still read about how other people write.  I am, after all in this area of the forums.  I'm just not very quick to adopt a whole new outlook based on something new I've read.

That sounds eminently sensible.

I think part of the point of reading lots of  different contradictory writing advice, though, is to figure what will work with your own personal process, so therefore it is a Good Thing.

[meg_evonne]

Good point Mighty.   Communication requires one to communicate and one or more to listen and understand.  Writing is communication, but writing does not require another to read and understand.  A=b & b=c does not mean a=c. The tree lays toppled on the forest floor--heard or not. If someone stumbles across it.

It might come to pass that as you write more that you will find the only people that begin to matter to you are the characters you created. They, like an addiction, become more important than someone reading it.  Their story will grip you, grab you by the throat, and steal your life, your sleep.

The interesting part?  Like Kali has said though--publishing doesn't come until the characters are that real, that 3D, that intriguing.              

That said when asked why JB wrote in school he responded, "I want to see my books in STACKS at Barnes and noble!"  To each their own.

So welcome to your new addiction!  It doesn't matter when you begin to write. Enjoy the ride your mind will create!

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Good point Mighty.   Communication requires one to communicate and one or more to listen and understand.  Writing is communication, but writing does not require another to read and understand.  A=b & b=c does not mean a=c. The tree lays toppled on the forest floor--heard or not.

perhaps it's overly Platonist of me, but I do not construe something as written until it is read.

[meg_evonne]

Certainly not communicated until read, but even graffite in Pompey wasn't read until years and years after being unearthed. So writing is still writing-- read or not, and always has the potential to be communicated unless destroyed.

Geez I sound like the communication major I was...  not so much philosophy expert.  and just my opinion.

[Kali]

It seems to be truer of writing than other art forms that most people feel an audience is required or it doesn't "count" somehow.  A picture painted is still art whether or not it's hanging in a gallery.  A pianist who sits down to play for an afternoon in his living room is still playing music even if he doesn't tour or perform concerts.  But writing doesn't 'count' unless it's been published.  neuro's not alone in that thinking (though I don't presume to say the other interpretations are neuro's as well), it just seems odd to me.  Writing is held to a different standard.

*shrug*

[belial.1980]

It seems to be truer of writing than other art forms that most people feel an audience is required or it doesn't "count" somehow.  A picture painted is still art whether or not it's hanging in a gallery.  A pianist who sits down to play for an afternoon in his living room is still playing music even if he doesn't tour or perform concerts.  But writing doesn't 'count' unless it's been published.  neuro's not alone in that thinking (though I don't presume to say the other interpretations are neuro's as well), it just seems odd to me.  Writing is held to a different standard.

*shrug*

If you feel happiest writing for yourself then that's what you should do. It's just that a lot of the people here (myself included) have aspirations of becoming published authors. If that's not your thing, it doesn't make you less of a writer. It's still in your blood and it's something that makes you happy. I think that's great and I absolutely don't think anybody would discount your work.

::Tangent alert:::

Check it out: years ago I wrote for a collaborative community called Chiaroscuro. Chiaroscuro was a fictional city full of vampires/werewolves/assorted denizens of the night. All characters were original and the authors wrote stories about their characters and posted them for others to read. I wrote a character named Zack, an absent minded paranormal investigator. It was fun but honestly the stuff I wrote was complete crap. I put my heart into it, but it was pretty amateur.

However, even though it wasn't any good by publishing standards it impressed some of the others and—what do you know—I got my first fan. A lurker on the site who was too shy to write but read all the threads requested my email from the mod. She wrote me to tell me that she really loved one of my stories. I know that's a really insignificant thing but that was a big deal for me. And when I think about it now, it still is. I shared something with her. I created something that affected her and for a little while Zack and the rest of the characters I invented were real to her; they mattered. What I wrote made her feel something.

Me personally—some day I'm going to write for a living. It's not about money. I don't have aspirations of being the next J.K. Rowling or anything. But I really want to write stories and share them with other people. I want to affect them, like I affected my "first fan." That's what I'd like to do with my life.

So, publishing doesn't appeal to you. You write; therefore you are a writer. Don't let anyone tell you different.

[Starbeam]

To address the original post, most of the books about writing that I've read only slightly make mention of getting published.  Mainly because the books I've read are more a collection of essays by authors about writing for them, like "Zen in the Art of Writing" by Ray Bradbury.  I also have another by Terry Brooks.  The books I have that do place an emphasis on getting published are books that I couldn't make myself finish.

And as for writing itself, I do it because I feel like crap and start going into a depressed phase when I don't.  It has a very noticeable physical and mental affect.  As for getting published, it's the best way to share the story.  There's a really good article/essay by Donald Maass called Storytellers and Status Seekers that talks about the two different people that try to get published.  It's in an writing magazine I read some months ago, and also has been printed as part of the forward of Fire in Fiction, or something like that, don't have the book in front of me.  But it's something worth reading.

[meg_evonne]

Someone posted this on twitter.  Thought it appropo to our thread.  As Starbeam says--everyone had their own way...

‎"There’s a common notion that self-discipline is a freakish peculiarity of writers—that writers differ from other people by possessing enormous and equal portions of talent and willpower. They grit their powerful teeth and go into their little rooms. I think that’s a bad misunderstanding... What impels the writer is a deep love for and respect for language, for literary forms, for books." {Annie Dillard] 

[belial.1980]

Someone posted this on twitter.  Thought it appropo to our thread.  As Starbeam says--everyone had their own way...

‎"There’s a common notion that self-discipline is a freakish peculiarity of writers—that writers differ from other people by possessing enormous and equal portions of talent and willpower. They grit their powerful teeth and go into their little rooms. I think that’s a bad misunderstanding... What impels the writer is a deep love for and respect for language, for literary forms, for books." {Annie Dillard] 

I'll agree...but no matter how much you love it, I still think there's a lot of self discipline and teeth gritting involved.