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| Photo credit: revbean on Flickr |
And it's a fair dream—an exciting,
if not slightly nerve-wracking one, to think of hundreds or thousands of people
reading the story that you wrote. The story that you spent years of your life
writing. The story that would not exist if you hadn't written it.
But I've seen this question asked
before, and truth be told, at the beginning of my journey as a writer, I didn't
want to answer it. I saw writers ask, "Would you keep writing if you knew
you were never going to be published?" and I thought, well I'm not
going to answer that because I am going to get published.
Well it's been years since I've
first seen that question and I'm still not published, but the question has
never really left my mind. And I think the reason I didn't want to answer it at
first was because I wasn't sure I would keep writing. Without the dream,
I thought, what was the point?
Years and many archived
manuscripts later, I think I've come to terms with the question. Because no,
there isn't any guarantee that I'm ever going to get published (traditionally,
anyway) and I've come to realize that I'm ok with that. Sure, it's still a
dream I hold on to and I truly believe that with enough patience and hard work,
any writer can see their dream realized, but there isn't ever a 100% guarantee
unless you self-publish (and even then, there's no guarantee that it'll sell).
So now when I see the question
"would you keep writing if you knew you were never going to be
published?" I think I can answer with a yes. Because no, I probably
wouldn't put as much work and time into each story as I do now, but I truly
don't believe I would stop writing altogether.
Because writing is more than just
chasing the dream: writers write to discover the story, to create new
characters and worlds and turn our experiences into words on the page that we
can read over and over again and share with others (even if, in the case of the
never-published writer, "others" is just a handful of friends and
family).
Because yes, every writer hopes to
one day get published but that's not the only reason we write (or at least, it
shouldn't be)—we write because we love it. Because there's something truly
special about translating experiences into words, about using just the right
combination of letters to create pictures and emotions in our readers.
Because a writer without words is
like a bird without wings. Because published or not, writing is what we writers
do.
Now it's your turn: Would you keep
writing if you somehow knew you would never get published?
