Why write fiction?
I found myself asking this question yesterday. Over the last year, most of my energy has gone into non-fiction work – this and other blogs, Druidry books, promotional work. I wrote a novel last year, but that seems a very long time ago. Non-fiction is comfortable, work-wise. I like the calmer, more intellectual thinking. Once you get started on a topic, the material suggests a logical progression. It speaks directly, makes its points clearly. What can fiction do that non-fiction cannot? I realised yesterday that if I couldn't answer this to my satisfaction, I would not write any more novels. (I've written about eleven novels so far, most of them published).
When I started novel writing, in my late teens, I did it because I had something to say. There weren't just stories and characters in my head, I had an agenda, a sense of direction. Then I discovered exactly how publishable I wasn't, and like so many authors before me, started exploring what it takes to be commercially viable. I've spent about a decade writing things I thought I could sell, and earning a modest income from ebooks as a consequence. Every year it's got that bit harder to sustain my enthusiasm. I realised yesterday, that there is no point in writing novels that are supposed to sell, as opposed to the stories I want to write. I've spent so long on the former that I have little sense of what the latter would look like any more. Better to write non-fiction.
That might have been it. However, I'm married to a man who fell in love with the novel I wrote in my early twenties, back when I was still writing more from the heart than from the head. So we had a long conversation about my work and the direction I'm heading in, and whether to give up the fiction.
Tom pointed out that fiction has a far greater capacity to be emotive, and to generate empathy. There is also the inherent scope to enchant and inspire – harder work in non-fiction. There is room to come at big ideas from odd angles, exploring what ifs.
I spent last summer under a lot of pressure to make my work even more overtly commercial. Yesterday Disney announced big losses because their latest bound-to-be-a hit movie, that no doubt ticked all the boxes, turns out not to be a profitable, sure fire thing after all. I don't want to live in a world where books, films, plays and other arts are written based on a commercial assessment of what might sell this year. The further we go trying to make things a definite commercial hit, the less soul there is. Maybe audiences aren't going to go for the box tickers so much in the future. What I do know, is that I can't do the commercial thing, it makes me miserable and the quality of my output deteriorates and then dries up. If I'm going to create, I need to be able to be proud of what I've made.
I have several books languishing on my hard drive. I'm going to wait until the graphic novel comes out, and then either find them a home, or give them away. A lot of people swung by this blog yesterday for the free poetry book. That was a huge morale boost. Books sitting unread on hard drives are a waste of time.
If I set out to write a novel thinking I'll just give it away, and not worrying about publishers and marketing and all those distractions, I may write something I like. I may finish it. Hell, I might even start it, and right now that would be something in itself.
Love like you've never been hurt, write like you don't need the money. Ok, I think it was 'work' originally, but not to worry. I used to write like it wasn't a job, but instead a dream. I used to write for the pleasure of telling a story and in the hopes of finding one person who would get it. I've had a decade of listening to other people telling me about market research, genres, rules. You have to do this, you can't do that, you must, you must…. It has sucked the joy out of me. No more. I'm very aware of there being a lot of people in my life who will judge me on sales figures and income. For many people, the only measure of quality is the cash it brings. I didn't set out down this path because I longed for fame and fortune. I wanted to tell good stories. I still want to tell good stories. The greatest commercial success of my writing life so far was the project I refused to compromise over.
Inspiration matters to me. It is part of the essence of druidry, and the beating heart of the bard tradition. If I don't honour that in my work, what on earth am I doing? So, I'm going to write a novel. A long one, full of wildness and strangeness, that will not fit tidily into a genre classification, and that will probably be very hard to sell. Having made this decision over night, I feel happier about my working life than I have in years.
