The Many Faces of The Writer

As you know, by now, this blog. is my ‘therapy’. I get here whenever I feel the need to look at myself and examine my craft, ask myself “why am I writing?” and examine the cascade of uncomfortable questions that include “who are you really writing for?” and “does anyone care anyway?”. These are not really meant to put a writer’s mind at ease but then again this isn’t what this blog is for at any rate.

A mind at ease with itself and what it does rarely gets to examine the reasons behind its own existence and by not examining the “why” of its “what” it somehow manages to blithely go along its way convinced that it is performing a vital task and conducting itself admirably well in the process.

So, if I am here because I doubt you have to ask yourself why should you even bother reading any further? After all, as a reader, you’re not here to indulge anyone Your time and attention are valuable commodities. Your need is to be educated, entertained or informed in some concoction personal to you and of value, again, only to you. I accept that argument but there’s something else.

Just like there is value in following the quest of a priest who doubts his faith because we believe that somehow in his internal struggle we will glimpse more about the existence of the divine than in all of the rehearsed presentations of organized religion, so is there real value following a writer struggling with his existence. In that struggle we truly see whether there is a need for writing or not and it is in that struggle that we might hope to understand its true value.

So, here we are. On the final stretch to the launch of my latest book “The Sniper Mind”, already pre-selling well on Amazon and as I am wading through the research for my next book (which for now must remain a secret) I am being forced to examine “why?”. This is the kind of question where answers such as “you need to make a living” or “it’s your job” don’t truly satisfy. In order for me to really get it together I need to have a sense of my own purpose and that has to transcend the fact that, like everyone else, I need a job.

In examining why writers write, writers also have to grapple with what they write about. How do they choose their subjects, how do they develop their arguments. The facile thing here is to say that “I write the kind of books I’d like to read” but that too is self-indulgent and it evades giving an answer. After all, given the fact that I carry out the interviews and I do all the research, I then barely really need to write the kind of book I want to read. I am in possession of its source material. So, no. While writers may write books in the kind of style they’d like to read, the books they write are not the books they want to read. Which means we need to go a little deeper.

My take on this is that whether writing fiction or non-fiction. The writer brings to the table the tools with which the moment can be faced and the future can be fought for. Grand, right? Think about it for a moment. Fiction is all about cautionary tales disguised as entertainment. Through it we get to explore that what-ifs that we can’t explore in any other way (and you only need to think of the success of “Harry Potter” or “Fifty Shades of Grey” to realize this particular truth). Non-fiction is all about equipping us with the tools we need, the know-how required to move in the direction pointed by the moral compass of fiction. Both types of book are about enabling and empowering us to accomplish what we want.

And that’s the exact point. In answering the “why?” – why do I write? Why do I choose the subjects I choose? Why do I believe this is the right book to write at this moment in time, I have to take into account not me, the writer, but you, the reader. I have to accept that in part I am responsible for the choices I make in a book’s subject matter and in making those choices I hope I have correctly read your collective need for that particular subject matter.

In order to read that as correctly as possible I have to work hard to “read” what you need in what you say and do, and don’t say and don’t do. And that keeps me both grounded and focused. Writers always feel the need to write but when they make the decision to write a book they should always be guided by the needs of their readers, not their own. This makes the books they write vital and it makes the craft of the writer a service to his readers so when the demons of doubt come (and they will) the writer who knows himself will be able to face them down not because of who he is, that really is immaterial, but because he has a good grasp of who his readers are and their need will always be above his own.

And if you liked this candid shot of the writer's struggle, shoot me a question. I will reply.

The Sniper Mind: Eliminate Fear, Deal with Uncertainty, and Make Better Decisions