When I’m tutoring English and my students are doing a writing task, I explain to them that they need to know two things:
WHO? WHY?
‘Who’ are you writing to/for? Are you writing a letter to your friend, or your headmaster? Are you writing a magazine article for teenagers or the elderly?
‘Why’ is your purpose. Are you writing to inform? To complain? To describe? To entertain? To suggest a solution to a problem?
Although these may or may not necessarily apply when writing creatively, recently I have been having difficulty in understanding these two simple words in my own work.
Like all of us who write, we do it because we love writing. We feel compelled to write things. We have these sudden bursts of inspiration and callings to put pen to paper or thumbs to the notes section of an iPhone and scribble down, tap out an idea, a punchline, a character trait, a bit of dialogue an opening scene or an ending.
I started writing when I was 14 years old. Back then, there was no audience, it was only for me. And there was no reason to write other than the fact that I really enjoyed it. Granted it was shit, and part of me knew deep down it was shit, but it didn’t matter. It was something for me to enjoy.
As I’ve developed in my writing, I have also developed the desire and realised the brilliance in sharing your work with others.
This brings an audience.
This brings editing.
This brings late nights.
This brings bags under eyes.
This brings crumpled pieces of paper littering your floor.
This brings folders and files of unfinished pieces because you’ve forgotten what the point in the story was.
This brings low self-esteem when you haven’t written anything half decent in weeks and your month by month game-plan-to-do list you wrote for “going in hard” in 2022" with the best intentions has already fallen behind.
You can see where this is going ...
We all have goals and dreams in our small fields of passion, whether it be writing, photography, art or whatever. The more we practise it, the more likely we are to want to share our work and get recognition from people. It’s brilliant when somebody you admire likes your work. It’s amazing when somebody you’ve never even met before likes your work. That moment when someone approaches you after your set, or a random person who saw you on stage at a festival emails you saying how much they liked your work - that’s nuts!
Lately, I’ve forgotten the reason I started writing and who I started it for. At times, I’ve become angry, bitter, reserved, unsociable and frustrated with the lack of words on my screen or the amount of shite I’ve managed to type up into a Word Document all day. I’ve forced upon myself pressures of wanting to please or get the recognition of my peers, or trying to think too hard about where my writing is headed or have allowed myself to become too consumed in wanting to reach new audiences. I’ve spent too much time telling myself I don’t market myself enough and I need to set up an up-to-date Youtube account, a decent Facebook group, a well advertised Twitter feed, a professional Linkedin profile, an impressive website and a topical blog.
It’s good to be focused on what you want, but at the end of the day, I don’t want to forget why I started writing and for who.
I like it and I do it for me.
Hopefully, everything will fall into place around that little bit of thinking.
PS Hey Stage 32, I'm new here so come say Hi! x
2 people like this
Well, this is a GREAT first post for someone new to the community! Well done, and welcome! If it helps - try to keep in mind that not everything that has been written needs to be read. Some things are written for you, not your readers. In fact, on the great scale of life, I hope you are so wealthy with memorable moments that your pen can never keep up. You do what you do, whether writing or not, because it fills your soul, and the moment it does not, you must stop. Full stop.
To the issue with marketing yourself, the landscape before you can seem daunting, yes. Your best step is only your next step. Looking ahead 3, 5, 10 steps only scatters your focus and sets you up for unmanageable expectations. If the best you can do is just the very next step forward, then it is enough. There is nothing stronger than 1 step forward with no step back.
For my part, I find my "why" is often based on seeing something missing in the world and fully understanding how I can fulfill that need. If it's been done before and well, then I'm not interested. Plus, the older I get, there is a certain level of honor and conviction lacking, and I want future generations to see more examples of characters doing noble deeds.
1 person likes this
Welcome Alex! This is a great post, thank you for sharing your thoughts here.
I've been a writer all my life, and have folders full of bad poetry, plays that were workshopped and dumped because they were ultimately too weird, a couple of novels, short stories, essays, and two screenplays, most of which has been read only by me. As you said Kay, "some things are written for you, not your readers".
Putting my work out there for feedback has been one of the hardest things I've ever done. And I've learned a lot in the process, especially here at Stage 32.
I write because I love it. I've struggled to get anything coherent on the page for the last couple of months, but continued journaling which I find helps a lot. My brain has had a rest from my last script re-write, and I'm ready to start something new and write the characters I want to see on the screen.