Marley Brant's Blog: There's a first time for everything! - Posts Tagged "writing"

I don't know what motivates writers to write. It certainly isn't money. If it is, they need a serious reality check. A glance at the balance of their bank account should evaporate that little fantasy. Meeting people can't be the reason. That comes only after you're out there promoting the book you've spent long and lonely hours creating, holed up in a little room with only the company of a clacking keyboard and a blinding white screen that stares back at you, silently but effectively taunting and jeering. A lot of people like to share their thoughts...whether or not they're boring or making any sense at all. No one listens to them so they write. There is a lot of self-satisfaction in creating a world where your opinion counts for something. Many non-fiction writers like the research; getting to the bottom of the story, finding facts that have been hidden or separating the folklore from the fact. Talking to people who were actually involved in the story being told; getting their perspective on how things went down. I've had a lot of fun with that. Switching to historical fiction for this last book was a big move for me and I had to ask myself why I wanted to do that after so many years on the other side of the fence. True that In the Shadow was based in fact, my first non-fiction book was based on the story. But I had to admit to myself that the over-riding reason I wanted to write this book was because it was just going to be a heck of a lot of fun to have the opportunity to put words in the mouths of the bigger-than-life personalities that I had been living with over thirty years. When it came down to it, who wouldn't want to do that? Maybe it was just that simple....