Fellow Medium Writer, Why Do You Write? How Learning My Why Changed My Trajectory.
A reflection that might help you, struggling writer.
The Writing Life
Fellow Medium writer, why do you write?
Writing is a frustrating life. While it may look like a glamorous career — drinking fancy espressos in cafes while typing out the great American novel on some bougie device — the truth is the likelihood of making buttloads of money from this is quite low.
As some of you may have read from my profile, I left my successful, full-time career to pursue fiction writing. I started with the delusion that I might eventually become a known author someday. That dream began to crumble when I looked at the statistics of full-time authors.
Every day, I watch my family’s income dwindle. Yet, I keep going. Luckily for me, my husband hasn’t complained yet. Surprisingly, he urges me on. He tells everyone I’m a writer.
But how much longer can I realistically keep this up?
And why do I keep doing it?
Why do you keep doing it?
I once read a book by Simon Sinek entitled Start With Why. This book was all the rage ~7 years ago. It was based on the idea that we’re more successful and motivated if we understand our “why” and use that to drive our actions.
After flailing in this writing career for several years, I suddenly was on a quest to discover my writing why.
Wisdom From a Movie
I recently watched My Salinger Year, a movie based on real life about a burgeoning poet’s humble beginnings. I’m a sucker for any movie where the writing life is a prominent character. Joanna Rakoff (played by Margaret Qualley) begins work as an assistant for an emotionally distant, renowned literary agent named Margaret (Sigourney Weaver). Their agency represents several high-profile authors, including J.D. Salinger, hence the movie’s title.
Judy Blume is another one of their authors but ends up parting ways with the agency after a tense meeting with Margaret. Upon Blume’s huffy departure, Rakoff rudely blurts out that she agrees with her decision to leave. Her comment was not received well.
As the relationship blossoms between Rakoff and Margaret, they eventually learn to trust each other. Towards the end of the movie, after a tragedy befalls the agency, they have a heartfelt discussion about Rakoff’s honest opinion on why Blume left. It was during this discussion that I had my epiphany.
Maybe she wasn’t looking for the perfect sales pitch. Maybe she just wanted to hear what you thought about the story. What it meant to you. Or if you love books the same way that she loves them.
The point she was making was the biggest struggle her boss showed throughout the movie — the inability to connect with others. A light bulb went off in my head.
An Epiphany: Why I Write
Most of us writers first write for ourselves. We have this urge to get whatever the idea is, written. To pour our emotions out onto the page. To bleed everything we’re feeling.
But if we’re honest with ourselves, we also write for others. We hope that someone out there reads what we birthed out with such great pain and frustration, and resonates with it. We hope to connect to that reader, to get inside their head, to have them experience the same exquisite pain, the same heartbreak, the same hunger, the same…everything.
Humans crave connection. It’s woven into our DNA. Even reclusive writers secretly hope for it, especially if they’re unable to achieve it in person.
This year I found out I have the rarest personality type for a woman. It creates interesting social dynamics for me. I’m introverted and weird and my energy level hardly ever goes above a five on a scale of ten. I don’t like people. I get in my head and stay there for days. I talk to myself and have long conversations.
But I cut my wrists on the page.
The best way to relate to me is through my writing. I may lack social currency in person, but I make up for it with my prose.
Finally, after all these years, I’ve learned that’s why I write: I want to connect to people and I do that best through my writing.
Another Epiphany: I Never Left Writing
I’ve been writing since I was a child. Kids made fun of me in class because I relished composing long essays, reports, and stories. I complained when teachers imposed a limit on the number of pages. That limit was often created for me.
I enjoyed the writing aspect of school throughout my education. But sometimes when you’re forced to stop doing something, you don’t think about it and just go along with it. I left fiction writing after my last formal creative writing class in college. It wasn’t part of my new career. I wonder where I’d be now if I hadn’t given up on it. We’ll never know.
I never left writing, though. I see that now and it gives me a huge sense of comfort. The compulsion to write led me to start several blog sites for that career, one of which was read by hundreds of thousands of people. I loved spending hours crafting each blog post. I would get lost in blog writing. It was my happy place.
People couldn’t understand why I would take so much time on an activity they hated. But they loved me for making the sacrifice. They encouraged me to keep writing, to keep expressing what I was feeling about that career, and to keep expressing what they were feeling as if I were the mouthpiece for that industry.
Many years later during quarantine, the drive to write fiction returned. It was overwhelming and it wouldn’t go away. Looking back, I believe it was a calling. It’s been over three years since that watershed moment.
Final Epiphany: I’ll Never Stop Writing
I have not been as successful or productive as I hoped to be in the past three years. Piecing together how to convert to a full-time writing career is its own monster, especially in an industry that keeps changing…and rapidly. Indie publishing is now the norm. A.I. writing platforms became a thing only after I started. The traditional publishing houses keep merging. The small ones disappear. I’m competing with hundreds of millions of other writers, many of whom also received their calling during quarantine. Every time I turn around, something new is challenging this space.
But I’m not deterred. I’ll keep trying. I’m ecstatic to have returned to my first passion. It feels right.
My Writing Trajectory Changes
I’ve learned a few things in this recent reflection. For instance, I have to take writing way more seriously and treat it like a job instead of a vacation. Rachel Cusk, a prolific author still today, is also represented in My Salinger Year. In a perfect little aside in the film, she explains the seriousness of being an author.
You really have to love it. You have to want it more than anything in the entire world. More than a boyfriend or a closet full of pretty dresses or a fancy job that makes everyone jealous.
In addition, I discovered it’s time to change my definition of success. When I don’t become the next Stephen King, it’s going to be okay. Returning to my why, if I’m fulfilled by making a connection with readers, that’s all I need to not regret this decision to pursue writing. Many authors carry a day job and write at night to take the financial pressure off. Maybe that’s what success looks like for me.
Writing is a frustrating life. But now that I know my why, it’s time to adjust my course.
Why do you write? And how does that change your trajectory?