Taking the Fun Out of Writing

"Why do you write?" asked character one.

"To impress people." answered character two.

That little interchange is from THE CASE OF THE GILDED FLY by Edmund Crispin. I'm embarrassed to admit that I could be character two. Much of what I've written over the last few years has been assembled solely to impress people. Who am I trying to impress? Agents and publishers. Strangers whose attention is fought for by the huddled masses yearning to be published.

So what can I do about it? If I want to be published, to have the public read my books, I must play the game. I must persuade them that vast numbers of people will want to read my books. Of course I must first write the book that I believe will interest those vast numbers, and that hasn't happened yet. I've just been going through the motions because it's what I believed I was supposed to do.

So I'm not going to do it anymore. I'm going back to writing what I want to write. Maybe someday I'll have something that people will want to read. Until then I'll just inflict my works on family and friends, at least till they stop summing up my work as, "interesting."