“Ask yourself if you would do it if nobody would ever see it,
you would never be compensated for it and nobody wanted it.”
– Ernst Haas (via)
There must be a reason I write. I write here, I write in a journal, I (don’t really at the moment) write short stories, and I (definitely not at the moment) am writing a novel.
I write.
All of it because I want to, for me and my own personal reasons which I’ve mentioned here before, at least that’s how it started.
Reading that Ernst Haas quote made me realise one of the reasons I’ve been a bit blocked on my novel. During NaNoWriMo I wasn’t thinking about anyone reading it, I was writing for me, writing to meet a target number of words every day yes, but it was (and still is) a first draft that no-one will ever see. I was writing a story I wanted to read.
However having let it sit for a while, which was always part of the plan, I find myself revisiting it with the expectation (hope?) that it will be read by others in the future. It wasn’t a conscious decision and it hadn’t even occurred to me until that quote sparked the thought in my head.
I’ve mentioned On Writing, the book by Stephen King that really helped me get my head into the right place to tackle NaNoWriMo, but I’ve forgotten one thing that he is very VERY clear on.
You write for one person, and one person only.
So that’s what I need to do, finish the first draft in the same vein I started it, write it because I enjoy writing, write it to tell a story that I want to read. I am my own constant reader.
