I am not a rabid fan of Steven King. I think he has his hits and misses, with my personal preference landing about 30%/70% in those respective categories. When he hits, boy does he hit hard, and he can give a journey though character growth, fear and events like nobody else. He is in the top 25 best selling of all fiction authors in history, which means my 30%/70% ratio is pretty factually off. Why am I mentioning him at all here? Because more years ago than I like to think about, in a lecture, or in a book, I have a distinct memory of Mr. King, saying a variation on the following quote.
“The difference between published authors and unpublished authors, is that published authors write.”
I don’t remember the exact words and at this point in time it is so far back that it might not have even been Steven King who said it, but a constructed memory from bits and pieces. I’ll attribute the sentiment to him, as it is not technically unique and he’s deserving of it anyway. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, gives outstanding advice, and it has that theme in there, even if not the quote.
I have abbreviated it here, to say simply, writers write. It doesn’t seem a very strange thing to say. A writer writes, is almost the definition of the moniker writer, but so many people are going to write, or site down to write, or want to write, or intend to write, or have a great idea for something that should be written, and someday when they are retired, they will get to it.
Writing is a hard business, and a narrow field to try to make a living in, but that is not what we are talking about today. Writing, the act of creation, regardless of publication or mass consumption is a worthwhile pursuit, but it is one which can only happen if writers, well... go write.
The number of people in Am
erica who say they have an idea for a book, has hovered at just over half for the last decade, with forty to fifty percent saying their life is worthy of writing down in a book. Yet the number of people who start a book, is between ten and twenty percent in the same time frame, and just less than ten percent of those twenty percent finish one. Just two percent of people.
Bored of the characters, bored of the story, can’t find inspiration, can't find an ending that works, can’t find a hook that gets people interested… the list of reasons why goes on and on. But th
ose who finish, often find the answer lies in the statement that writers write. They write on good days, they write on bad days, they write when they are inspired and the write when they are not. They write under the law of averages, that’s says some days you will create magical masterpieces, some days your brain will shovel out dreck. On average, you will be average. They write all the same.
We cannot wait as writers for inspiration to always strike. We cannot wait for motivation. Motivation fades. Inspiration is so mythical as to have muses. We must always remember the disciplined answer that if we want to join the ranks of the minority, writers must write.
Comentarios