Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: thoughtful
  • Music: Pink, "Funhouse."

5 reasons I love writing.

I'm a writer. I've been a writer for as long as I've had a grasp of written language, although my earliest works were, admittedly, not all that complex. I get asked "when did you start writing?" pretty commonly in interviews, and my response is always something along the lines of "I have no idea, in the womb, maybe, I don't know." Because really, I don't.

So as we continue our countdown (five days! Sweet pumpkin pie, five days!), here's today's list:

5 Reasons I Love Writing.

5. Stephen King put it best when he said that writing is like a form of telepathy. I make things up, I write them down, and then you can see them, in your mind. You "hear" dialog that I wrote. You "meet" people that I invented. When I write, I am Emma Frost, and that is awesome.

4. Writing continually surprises me. No matter how long I do it, no matter how much time I spend working to improve, I still find myself staring at things on the page and going "whoa, where did that come from?"

3. Writing comes with a very concrete and visible reward for hard work. If I write 2,000 words, I have 2,000 words that I didn't have before. If I write a book, dude, there is now a book in the world that didn't exist before I started typing. Me! I made that! It's incredibly fulfilling. Very few things in life are this immediately fulfilling.

2. I have to work to write. It's my hobby and what I do to relax and it makes me happy, but it's also work. If I don't revise, edit, check my spelling, check my continuity, and basically do hard labor, I don't get good books. I feel like I've done something when a story is finished, and that's amazing.

1. When I'm writing, I make all the rules. I don't think there's anything better than that.
Tags: a local habitation, contemplation, editing, good things, making lists, proofreading, toby daye, writing
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  • 52 comments

spectralbovine

February 25 2010, 16:52:50 UTC 7 years ago

When I'm writing, I make all the rules. I don't think there's anything better than that.
I think that is what struck me when I wrote "Polter-Cow." I could make my characters do anything! I WAS THE MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE!

mariadkins

February 25 2010, 17:06:08 UTC 7 years ago

Amen.

I've had people argue with me, "But vampires aren't like that." And I just glare at them and tell them, "Well mine aren't like that. They're non-traditional vampires. Deal with it."

:D

ladyfox7oaks

February 25 2010, 18:20:54 UTC 7 years ago

Yeah, I've made that mistake once or twice... Luckily - the smack upside the head I received reminded me that the place wasn't MY world, it was THEIR world- I was just peeking in.

mariadkins

February 25 2010, 20:50:27 UTC 7 years ago

the smack upside the head I received reminded me that the place wasn't MY world, it was THEIR world- I was just peeking in.

I wish more readers could take in that lesson! :)

seanan_mcguire

February 26 2010, 16:02:56 UTC 7 years ago

Amen.