Do You Write For Love?

Do you write for love?

Not love of publication or love of fame or love of royalties. Love of writing--of putting words together. Choosing one word over another, and putting them together in a certain way that it perfectly expresses the vision in your brain.

Years ago I heard a University of Houston Literature professor, who was a published poet, say that only poets write for the love of writing.

His reasoning was that poets never make any money from writing so they do it strictly because they love stringing words together.

I disagreed with him then, and I disagree now. I know many writers who have written hundreds of thousands of words and have never been published yet they still keep writing.

They submitted to publishers countless times and were rejected each time — not because their writing isn’t worthy of publication, but because of other reasons having nothing to do with the quality of writing.

Rejection Is the Rule, Not the Exception

What many people in the general public don’t realize is that authors get rejected all the time.

Rejection is no stranger to authors who are already published and writers who aren’t published but who are well-versed in the necessary skills to write a publishable book.

Writers don’t get published because of myriad reasons, and most of those reasons are subjective.

Perhaps the publisher just bought a manuscript with that premise or that same setting. Maybe the editor doesn’t think the marketing hook is high concept enough or the editor’s personal opinion is that no one could ever be caught in the situation that’s in the opening scene of the book.

Maybe the publisher has an author who already writes that type of book, and they don’t see a need for another author writing it. Maybe the industry is downsizing because of the rise of indie publishing. Maybe the editor disdains women like the heroine of your book. Or, maybe the hero’s name is Brian, and the editor just split from her significant other who is also named Brian.

Get the picture?

Self-Published Indie Authors Get Rejected Too

Unfortunately, deciding to be an indie author/publisher doesn't guarantee acceptance either. Now you have to get accepted by the most critical people out there: the book-buying public.

Rejection to an indie author means your book languishes in the online bookstores. You don't get reviews. You can't buy good ad space. You don't make sales. It's easy to feel rejected and downtrodden, isn't it?

Geez! It's enough to make you wonder if all writers are really masochists at heart because most of us just keep writing, plugging away, and hoping for future acceptance which translates into better book sales.

Writing For Love Makes One Persist

Why do we keep writing? I think it's because we truly love the act of writing--creating fictional worlds and putting people in them, stringing words together to represent what we see in our heads.

Takeaway Truth

We novelists may not be poets, but we do write for love.