Why We Write

As I work to get the word out about my new book, I’m struck with how foolhearty it is for an author to promote his work.  Recently, I paid for someone to review my book, thinking, “Well, that will be a great way to have people see what I’ve done.”  I’d hoped that I get a two or three star review. When I read the review, I realized that whoever reviewed it gave me a four kick in the groin review. I lost my breath and fell to my knees.  What he/she said make it look like my book was something you’d read only with a gun pointed at your head.  I felt as if I hired and paid for my own assassin.   Of course, what the review said had some truth to it, if the norm these days is a short to-the-point novel.  Mine has two parts.  It also over 400 pages. It claimed one character, the father,  was one-dimensional, which, given the number of pages he’s on, is hard to believe.  But I’ll listen to what was said and head to work on another book, humbled. I can see why many famous writers found literary critics some  lowly species, ones living off the corpses of writers.  Or maybe even making writers into corpses. I’ve always felt that, as a critic, that if I could not say something positive about a book I’ve review that I would not review it.  Even if paid.  I’ve felt that if someone has worked hard to get a work out I should be able to support what they did and why they did it or be silent.  It’s not easy.  It takes a time and effort. It’s lonely work.

So I wondered why it is that anyone spends three years of their life writing given how difficult it is to be published and costly it is to get a book out in the public.   I guess if I knew that I wouldn’t be writing this.  But I suspect it is that we believe that we have something to say.  When people don’t like what we said, or, for that matter, how we said it, we must live with their judgment. It stings because it’s not as if we can just walk away and say, “Oh, well, tomorow I’m shoot a better round.”  Because tomorrow is lots of tomorrows. A lifetime really.  Yet here we go, writing some more.  Waiting for someone to say, “Yes, that is important work.”  That may be why writers work alone.  The imagination allows us to live in a world where the might-have-been can be real.