Would You Want to Know?

Agent Nathan Bransford asked his readers this week if there was a seer who could tell writers they'd absolutely, never be published, (a) would they want to know and (b) would they keep writing. Overwhelmingly, the answer was yes, they'd want to know, and even if the news was bad, they'd keep writing.

It's hard to know exactly how seriously most of these responders take their writing, how many hours a week they work on it and all that. I can only assume the range is wide. But I have to say I can't get on board with the idea of continuing to write with any kind of seriousness without the slightest chance of being published and having some kind of audience. Certainly writing a novel, even a short story, is a grueling task if you're going to craft something that anybody besides you can appreciate. Even if you're the kind of writer that enjoys the process, at some point you're going to be (a) despairing that you'll ever finish, (b) sorry you ever started and (c) plagued by the idea that what you have written thus far is utter crap. Certainly it is satisfying when you finally feel you get something right. But doesn't at least some of that satisfaction come from knowing that what you've written is good enough that maybe someone else will like it?

Some people admitted they'd probably cut down on their writing time if they knew there was no hope, and would also spend less time perfecting their prose, but still they'd have to write, because they needed to. I can see keeping a diary or dashing off a page of something you had stuck in your head. Or blogging, because it's not all that taxing. But if you saw a post-apocalyptic movie in which the last human on earth was working on the third draft of a literary novel in the middle of a trash-strewn field, would you really think: oh how nice, she's expressing herself!

I'm sure there are those who write for the sheer joy of it, and I can't say I'd never write another sentence if the seer came to me with the bad news. But I think it's telling that a high percentage of the never-say-die group in the commenters tried to cheat the system, saying no one could ever know for sure what would happen, and some of them would go on writing to just to prove the seers wrong.

Have a great weekend!