What Is Creative Writing About?
Why do you write fiction?
Tell me, do you think creative writing is simply the process of picking words out of the sky, all those neat, prissy little words like love or forever, those found in Valentine’s Day cards, or words like saddened or sympathy in cards conveying regret and sorrow?
Creative writing is more complicated.
There are two prominent reasons why we offer our fiction on Medium. First, it offers an opportunity to get paid for our efforts; Second, we get to read other writers’ works and wonder how we compare.
The first reason is healthy enough but the second, well, not so much. Of course, it’s natural to wonder how we match up against other writers, but this is an unproductive mindset because we are not our own best critics.
What’s your real purpose for writing?
hobby therapy income connection joy or make a name for yourself?
I don’t think too many of us admit to starving, but that’s why I write. I’m starving for affection. In belonging to this writing community, I’m not hungry any longer. I’m satisfied.
There’s another reason, hardly worthy of a mention but we’re all struggling to be better, so why not? I write because I don’t understand, I don’t understand so many things, so I write, that’s all. I write because I don’t know.
How I wish that all it took was dragging a few words down from the sky and scribbling them onto paper instead of ringing them out of some hurt.
It’s not all harrowing stuff, there is joy in writing, squeezing all the juice out of some happiness.
How fortunate some people are not to love words the way we do.
Do you want to know how difficult writing makes me, how bloody-minded, arrogant, or how selfish I can be?
Do you want to know how my legs feel when someone says thank you for writing that story, that song, or that poem? I’ll tell you, I fall apart, I go to pieces because I don’t know how to say well enough what it is I want to say, how complimented and humble I feel because the very words ‘thank you’ will reduce me to tears of appreciation, and so I crush them with a throw-away line, a cynical catch-phrase, or a thread of sharp arrogance because no one will ever know how much those words mean to me, how I could fall apart right in front of them or want to hug them.
A few more of Harry's favorite writers:
Adrienne Beaumont, The Sturg, Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles, Trisha Faye, Karen Schwartz, Nancy Oglesby, Katie Michaelson, Bernie Pullen, Michelle Jimerson Morris, Amy, Julia A. Keirns, Pamela Oglesby, Tina, Pat Romito LaPointe, Brandon Ellrich, Misty Rae, Karen Hoffman, Susie Winfield, Vincent Pisano, Marlene Samuels, Ray Day, Randy Pulley, Michael Rhodes, Lu Skerdoo, Pluto Wolnosci 🟣, Paula Shablo, Bruce Coulter, Ellen Baker, Kelley Murphy, Leigh-Anne Dennison, Patricia Timmermans, Keeley Schroder, James Michael Wilkinson, Whye Waite, John Hansen, Trudy Van Buskirk, | Dixie Dodd | Joanie Adams — Sightseer; Conjurer Of Words | Iosé Cocuzza 🪷| Adda Maria | Dennett | pockett dessert | [email protected] | Nancy Santos | Jenny Blue | Jack Herlocker | Love | Barbara J. Martin | Audrey Clifford | R. Rangan PhD | Maria Rattray | Jerry Dwyer | Denise Shelton | Trisha Faye | Sal Gallaher | StorySculptress | Katherine Myrestad
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