Why Do I Write?
I've been working on a draft of a book for the first time in five years, and it has caused me to reflect on why I'm doing this in the first place.
(I should note that this entire conversation has also been going on in therapy once a week, because there's a whole lot of emotions tied up in this, and I've got my own issues to deal with.)
But here's why I am NOT writing a book:
For The Money: When I sold Variant, it was for a lot of money--an absurd amount of money given the time in my life that it arrived. Fortunately, I had just finished grad school and was in desperate need of the money, so I welcomed it gladly, but it was a lot. I have never been paid as much for any book since, because that was a time when publishers were really throwing a lot of cash at YA dystopians.
But I'm definitely not writing this book for the money. I can't. It makes me sick to think about writing for money again. Which isn't to say that I won't accept an advance, but just to say that I have ZERO interest in ever writing fulltime again. A book a year? Sure, I could do that. But quitting my day job and writing? Not a chance. The thing is, I've done both, and there's just nothing that fulltime writing offers that isn't surpassed by a steady paycheck and health insurance.
But more than that, I have decided that I'm not going to plan anything with the money. No "if we get X amount of money we can get that new car" or "if we get X amount of money we can go to Disneyworld". Not even "if we get X amount of money I can pay off my credit cards". Because as soon as I start assigning that money to something, then I stop writing for the love of writing, and I start writing because I REALLY NEED TO PAY OFF THOSE CREDIT CARDS. And that's just not healthy.
The thing is, I am really enjoying writing for the fun of it. I don't want to write for extrinsic motivators. (Mostly. We'll get to that.)
For Critical Praise: Variant won a lot of awards. Several of my books got starred reviews from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly. I won a Whitney Award and then I won another Whitney Award. I won a YALSA award. I won the Sunshine State Young Readers Award. And those things all stroked my ego, and maybe they brought in some more sales, but mostly they just gave me a big head.
And do you know what all of those awards have done for me? Well, I got a damn cat and he knocked EVERY SINGLE ONE of those awards off the window sill above my desk, shattering them into pieces. I am very bitter about this, and I have never forgiven that stupid cat.
Why I Am Writing This Book:
Because It's Fun: I'm honestly just really enjoying the process of writing a book. It's good to be back in that headspace, and I'm loving immersing myself in a world. I haven't written for fun in a LONG time. Honestly, the last book that I wrote purely for fun was Airships of Camelot, and that was in 2015. Since then I have written, but it was as writing fulltime was winding down--and my mental illness was ramping up--and I was writing very much for the purpose of earning money. I did a lot of ghostwriting and co-writing, and none of it was just for me. So this is fun.
Because I Want People to Read It: Here's the thing. I don't want the book to sell well because I want to make a lot of money, but I do want people to read this, because I really like it. I don't want money--I want people to enjoy it, and, if I'm being honest, I want people to tell me they like it.
So it's still a sort of extrinsic motivation. I just want compliments, not money.
(Yes, of course I realize that this is a problem because I know all too well that authors shouldn't read reviews. So I'll stay away from Goodreads, most certainly, but, why, two days ago I got a stray piece of Variant fan mail. If a book from almost fifteen years ago can still bring in fan mail, then maybe this new book can bring in a couple of positive notes.
The Point
All of this depends, of course, on the book actually selling and finding an audience. I don't know when or if that will happen. So, who knows?
