on writing

A friend at work found out that I write books and have had decent success (20,000 copies sold and counting), and they commented, “I want to write a best-selling book and make a lot of money and just retire off of it.” I just smiled to myself, and I held back from saying, “Writing books isn’t about making money. Writing is about capturing something beautiful, something deep, something tragic; writing is about conveying the brightest and darkest sentiments of life; writing is about expressing yourself through characters and settings and dramas, your fears and hopes and dreams and desires; writing, even fiction, is about exposing yourself to the scrutinizing of the reader and subsequently being labeled by their own designs. Writing doesn’t come out of a passion for money; writing comes out of, simply, a passion to write. Writers are poor fools bumbling about in this world, often lonely and grief-stricken, their eyes focused outwards and upwards into the realm of the illusory- and imaginary-and-yet-real.” I don’t write to make money. I have sold over 20,000 copies of my books, and I haven’t made a cent. It’s not about the money. It’s about the fact that there is an urge within me, a craving and an addiction, a need that must be fulfilled, the need to simply write. When I don’t write, I become ancy and jittery, and my hands shake and my fingers tremble, and my heart flutters and there is an emptiness within me. I don’t write because I want money; sometimes I don’t even write because I want to: I write because I have to. And that’s what distinguishes me from those who would view writing as a means to an end rather than the end itself.