Why?

KEEP WRITING! I know. I’m kind of yelling it right? And you’re probably thinking, “Dude, I get it.” And you might also be thinking “Okay, keep writing. But why?” Why should you keep writing? Why should you bother when it seems everybody you know has self-published some silly book? Why does your story need to be told?

The truth is it doesn’t need to be told.  But if you have a story inside of you that you want to tell, I say why the heck not? Yeah. I said heck. This writing stuff is seriously business so I’ll ‘heck’ whenever I want. But  the question here that we wannabe writers should be asking ourselves isn’t “why” but “why not?” Why not you? Why not your book? Why not your movie? Why not do something you’ve always wanted to do? Sure there’s no original ideas left and everything is just a rehash and blah blah blah. So if that’s the case, why don’t you throw your novel onto the pile and just do it? The worst thing that could happen if you write the story that you’ve always wanted to write is that people read it and it never gets published. Well, I hate to break it to you but while you hold your story hostage inside of your crazy head, people aren’t reading it and it’s not getting published. Yes it may be a number one bestseller in your mind but here in the real world, ain’t nobody read it.

So why not just write the darn thing and increase your odds of it actually getting published, hmm? Heck and darn. I told you this is intense stuff. But for the reals, why not write it? It’s a low-risk venture. I’m not asking you to sink millions into a chain of vegan yogurt shops or to even send $10 dollars to an orphan in some far off land. Or here’s a crazy thought–maybe you don’t even have to know why your writing until later? Brett Easton Ellis, a guy who’s written a lot of stuff, tends to agree with me. “You write a book,” he once said, “To figure out why you’re writing the book.” Sounds good to me.

So yeah. Why not write? Seriously, I’d like to know. If you have any brilliant excuses not to write, please post them in the comments section.

 

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