Why I Write
Why do I write?
It’s not for the “writing lifestyle” that I write. I’ve come to think that I can do without this. The lifestyle of hoping for, and believing in, something evanescent which, when considered in the grand scheme of things, so easily disappears again: “public adoration”. Or to put it a little less optimistically, “public approval”. And considering that very few of that public are ever likely to read what I’ve written, I now know that while there can be some romance in thinking of myself as a writer (famous or not) this is entirely the wrong reason for writing. It feels wrong: like something I am tempted to do, but know all the while to be bad for my soul. I’ve now had enough of that. As Boëthius says in his De Consolatione Philosophæ:
“Thou knowest that these things which I say are true, and that I was never delighted in my own praise, for the secret of a good conscience is in some sort diminished when by declaring what he hath done, a man receiveth the reward of fame.”
This is not false humility. A writer can know his own greatness – indeed, should know that greatness, in order to produce something worthy of that name – yet not depend on public approval for personal happiness. This is how I interpret Boëthius, and it makes sense to me. Greatness thus becomes independent of what others might think. Perhaps an elaborate self-induced delusion. Perhaps not. I cannot think of a single person whose character fame – actively sought – has improved.
Neither is it for the money. Only a lucky few can hope to have an income solely derived from novel-writing, and even fewer the grand (and often, spiritually empty) lifestyle that derives from wealth. I disabused myself long ago, of the carrots – the false hopes – continually offered us: remarkable stories of publishing success on the net that one reads about. Stories held out as inducements to ways of thinking that are mere pipe dreams . . .
I do not write to leave a legacy for the world to discover one day, or rediscover. The world will make all the literary discoveries it wants to, long after I am gone from it, by the process of creation. And it will do so without my help. The art of creation is, simply, the creation of art.
How many books have I read, which have significantly changed my life?
Perhaps none. Certainly I have read some remarkable fiction in my time, fiction that has captured both my respect, and my emotions – and I’ve always believed that the best novels are those that have left me with some strong sense of feeling something at the end, whether it be regret, exhilaration, sadness or despair. Such is the power of a good story.
No, the real changes in my life have been made by people – those whom I love, and those whom I think I would rather have done without. And those whom, oddly enough, fit both categories simultaneously. It is all these people that make the basis for my fiction. And indeed, for my life. Thus (to myself at least) it makes sense entirely that I should write about these people. In a most indirect way, of course. They have stirred my emotions and respect more than any novel could ever have done, so it makes sense to live that part of my life I call my “literary life” by writing fiction which reflects these personal influences. But this cannot be, at heart, the reason I write my fiction, for otherwise, a simple journal would suffice, making anything more, redundant.
Yet I still feel the need to create . . .
In writing, I can reformulate – “come to grips with”, as it were – my life. I can make some sense of it, for undoubtedly, there is a certain catharsis when writing about that which is intimate and often painful.
But there’s more than just that, more than a mere “feeling better about it all”. The great 20th century English writer John Fowles said, in 1969, “I like the creation of another world. That is very beautiful and satisfying for me. As soon as a book leaves this room, this house, there’s always a diminution of pleasure.” That is certainly true. In the process of novel-writing, one does “live” in the world being created, in a way that only a novelist can fully understand. But is that a plausible reason, at heart, to continue to write novels? For if I wished to escape, I could just as easily travel, or watch a movie. Or read another’s creation – another’s novel – and avoid the countless hours, days and weeks of struggle to perfect my own created world, however cathartic or captivating it might be.
My father died aged sixty-four, when I was thirty-eight. I am now sixty-four, so I think not infrequently about my own death, which will be certain. I remember seeing him, not long before he died, carving his initials “KK” onto a wooden bench at the seaside. And not long after he died, the city council removed the bench, presumably destroying it. The carving might just as well have read, “I was here”, for the seeming futility of it all. Likewise, the gold-anodized aluminium plaques on the spacecraft Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11, carrying depictions of a man and a woman, inter alia, were sent out on their interstellar journey in the Panglossian hope that extraterrestrial life might understand us, even if such understanding were to postdate our extinction as a race.
Yet however futile such actions might be, there persists a basic human desire to reach out, to communicate. The near impossibility of having an actual exchange of information does not appear to be important; it is the hope of having one which sustains us, and compels us to send out our “messages in bottles”.
This, although it comes closer to the reason I write, is still not central to it.
It is death which gives life its value, and therefore its meaning. For what we value becomes meaningful. Do our attempts to reach out to others stem from a desire to “cheat death”, by ensuring that we leave behind something – children, figures on a plaque, a carving on a wooden bench, or a created fiction – so that we “live on” in some way after we die? Perhaps, but I believe there is something yet more crucial.
“Leaving one’s mark” as a testament to a life well-lived is noble, because it affirms the value of life given it by death. If that mark is art, the affirmation is the noblest form of art. And if that art is one’s novel, which always says something about its author’s life, then the novelist is a noble being who says rather more elaborately - to himself - “I was here”.
figuratio
April 2018
It’s not for the “writing lifestyle” that I write. I’ve come to think that I can do without this. The lifestyle of hoping for, and believing in, something evanescent which, when considered in the grand scheme of things, so easily disappears again: “public adoration”. Or to put it a little less optimistically, “public approval”. And considering that very few of that public are ever likely to read what I’ve written, I now know that while there can be some romance in thinking of myself as a writer (famous or not) this is entirely the wrong reason for writing. It feels wrong: like something I am tempted to do, but know all the while to be bad for my soul. I’ve now had enough of that. As Boëthius says in his De Consolatione Philosophæ:
“Thou knowest that these things which I say are true, and that I was never delighted in my own praise, for the secret of a good conscience is in some sort diminished when by declaring what he hath done, a man receiveth the reward of fame.”
This is not false humility. A writer can know his own greatness – indeed, should know that greatness, in order to produce something worthy of that name – yet not depend on public approval for personal happiness. This is how I interpret Boëthius, and it makes sense to me. Greatness thus becomes independent of what others might think. Perhaps an elaborate self-induced delusion. Perhaps not. I cannot think of a single person whose character fame – actively sought – has improved.
Neither is it for the money. Only a lucky few can hope to have an income solely derived from novel-writing, and even fewer the grand (and often, spiritually empty) lifestyle that derives from wealth. I disabused myself long ago, of the carrots – the false hopes – continually offered us: remarkable stories of publishing success on the net that one reads about. Stories held out as inducements to ways of thinking that are mere pipe dreams . . .
I do not write to leave a legacy for the world to discover one day, or rediscover. The world will make all the literary discoveries it wants to, long after I am gone from it, by the process of creation. And it will do so without my help. The art of creation is, simply, the creation of art.
How many books have I read, which have significantly changed my life?
Perhaps none. Certainly I have read some remarkable fiction in my time, fiction that has captured both my respect, and my emotions – and I’ve always believed that the best novels are those that have left me with some strong sense of feeling something at the end, whether it be regret, exhilaration, sadness or despair. Such is the power of a good story.
No, the real changes in my life have been made by people – those whom I love, and those whom I think I would rather have done without. And those whom, oddly enough, fit both categories simultaneously. It is all these people that make the basis for my fiction. And indeed, for my life. Thus (to myself at least) it makes sense entirely that I should write about these people. In a most indirect way, of course. They have stirred my emotions and respect more than any novel could ever have done, so it makes sense to live that part of my life I call my “literary life” by writing fiction which reflects these personal influences. But this cannot be, at heart, the reason I write my fiction, for otherwise, a simple journal would suffice, making anything more, redundant.
Yet I still feel the need to create . . .
In writing, I can reformulate – “come to grips with”, as it were – my life. I can make some sense of it, for undoubtedly, there is a certain catharsis when writing about that which is intimate and often painful.
But there’s more than just that, more than a mere “feeling better about it all”. The great 20th century English writer John Fowles said, in 1969, “I like the creation of another world. That is very beautiful and satisfying for me. As soon as a book leaves this room, this house, there’s always a diminution of pleasure.” That is certainly true. In the process of novel-writing, one does “live” in the world being created, in a way that only a novelist can fully understand. But is that a plausible reason, at heart, to continue to write novels? For if I wished to escape, I could just as easily travel, or watch a movie. Or read another’s creation – another’s novel – and avoid the countless hours, days and weeks of struggle to perfect my own created world, however cathartic or captivating it might be.
My father died aged sixty-four, when I was thirty-eight. I am now sixty-four, so I think not infrequently about my own death, which will be certain. I remember seeing him, not long before he died, carving his initials “KK” onto a wooden bench at the seaside. And not long after he died, the city council removed the bench, presumably destroying it. The carving might just as well have read, “I was here”, for the seeming futility of it all. Likewise, the gold-anodized aluminium plaques on the spacecraft Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11, carrying depictions of a man and a woman, inter alia, were sent out on their interstellar journey in the Panglossian hope that extraterrestrial life might understand us, even if such understanding were to postdate our extinction as a race.
Yet however futile such actions might be, there persists a basic human desire to reach out, to communicate. The near impossibility of having an actual exchange of information does not appear to be important; it is the hope of having one which sustains us, and compels us to send out our “messages in bottles”.
This, although it comes closer to the reason I write, is still not central to it.
It is death which gives life its value, and therefore its meaning. For what we value becomes meaningful. Do our attempts to reach out to others stem from a desire to “cheat death”, by ensuring that we leave behind something – children, figures on a plaque, a carving on a wooden bench, or a created fiction – so that we “live on” in some way after we die? Perhaps, but I believe there is something yet more crucial.
“Leaving one’s mark” as a testament to a life well-lived is noble, because it affirms the value of life given it by death. If that mark is art, the affirmation is the noblest form of art. And if that art is one’s novel, which always says something about its author’s life, then the novelist is a noble being who says rather more elaborately - to himself - “I was here”.
figuratio
April 2018
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