It's not how you play the game...

So, in the comment trail of my last post, Sara noted:

"You've chosen a path where you put the validation of your work into someone else's hands. (Which is what I gather from your post--i.e. that writing this novel isn't worth it if it will not be published and read.) This is a difficult path because it's something that's basically out of your control. You can make your work the best it can possibly be, but you can't force people to love it or want to publish it."

She is absolutely right, of course. But that raises an interesting question about why we write. Why I write.

Which is--I write to be read.

Do I love writing for its own sake? Yes, though it's a complicated relationship, and sometimes it's more like a love/hate thing or a love/despair thing, or even a I-love-you-but-I can't-wait-till-you've-outgrown-this-annoying-phase thing. Rather like parenting a child, I suppose. Rewarding beyond measure, but also frustrating beyond measure. Yet I wouldn't trade it for anything.

I take fulfillment in crafting a story, in slaving over words, images, plot events, character growth, in shaping something intricate and complex out of the raw material of my experience and imagination.

But books are meant to be read. Writers--geeky, quiet, solitary, introverted, and bookish as many may be--are sneaky little exhibitionists on the page. And exhibitionists require an audience, or else there's no point to the exhibition. Writing is done in solitude, but ultimately it is a performance art.

Love of the process carries us through the dark times--I'd be crazy to do this if I didn't thrive on the act of story-telling--but the goal, to my mind, is having my creation read and enjoyed by as many people as possible. There is no greater high. For me, that's where true validation lies.

Sara is right in that I can't control the fate of my work--but I would argue that it's not entirely out of my hands either. It's my job--my challenge--to be good at what I do, to be better than good if possible. Like a competitive athlete, I have to hone my skills; like a professional (or would-be professional) singer, I have to learn how to connect with an audience. This art of telling stories and writing books is so deeply a part of who I am that I could never be content to just write for the joy of it. May as well tell an aspiring singer that she should be happy performing after hours to an empty hall.

Now, there are writers out there--Sara says she's one--who find enough validation in the process itself that they will have counted the time well spent even if they never achieve publication. I admire that, even envy it sometimes, but it's not me. The old adage says "It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game," but to a highly competitive person like myself, the only point in playing the game at all is to win. Just ask any freshly defeated and disappointed Little-Leaguer. The game may have fun, but he wasn't playing just to play; he was playing to win.

Nor am I writing just to write. I am writing to be published and read. That's the goal, the prize, the winner's circle. Because without that, the act of writing is not complete. It is, after all, a form of communication and I see no point in spending my life just talking to myself.