Writing Rewards

What is the ultimate reward for authors? I'd be willing to bet if you polled every published author that ever lived, the overwhelming majority would not say compensation. This isn't to say compensation is not important - we all need an income to live. The motivations and reasons writers write goes much deeper. Quotes from writers on their craft can supply us snapshots of some of the rewards for authors.

I read this quote by Joseph Onesta the other day: "I write for the same reason people squeeze pimples. There is something irritating inside and I need to get it out." Many of us can relate to that quote. One author reward is release from the demons that trample our psyche.

Ray Bradbury, one of my writing heroes, has commented on the art and craft of writing for many years. I like this quote about an author reward, "You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you." The physical act of writing allows us to not only escape the confines of our realities, writing also emboldens us to step out beyond our inhibitions. As authors, a major reward for many of us is to explore life on a level we otherwise would be unable or incapable of attaining.

In a related quote, E. L. Doctorow said, "Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia." Similar to Bradbury's quote above, i feel this quote addresses a separate reward for authors - the freedom to experiment without repercussion. While Bradbury addresses in 'inner' author, Doctorow addresses the fact that non-writers look at authors as odd and give us leeway when we get 'out there' a bit. The freedom to write what you feel and send this writing out into the world with a persona attached to it that isn't necessarily yours, AND to not be judged too harshly for it is a reward for authors.

One of the top rewards for authors is couched in this quote from Logan Pearsall Smith: "What I like in a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers." I do not believe there is an author who doesn't search out that Holy Grail of the perfect word, phrase, sentence, paragraph, book. When we nail something, we know it. The euphoria that springs from an expertly turned phrase, sentence, etc., is a reward only writers experience and appreciate. We feel these diamond-silk craftings in our marrow. They warm us and spurs us to our next muse.

Then there's the therapy reward. William Wordsworth said, "Fill you paper with the breathings of your heart." What's on your heart today? Joy? Pain? Sorrow? A blank page is all the author needs to bleed his/her soul of the emotions that otherwise might do them in. Writing is the ultimate therapy. As an author, you are forced to see that which is buried within and at least address it with these squiggly things we call letters. A breathing heart onto the pages of our souls is huge reward to writers.

"A writer is someone who can make a riddle out of an answer." - Karl Kraus. Everyone would love to be looked upon as clever. We all have egos that need stroked. Writers can turn the most banal statements into hilarious jokes and pat answers into joyriding riddles. Anyone who says their a writer and they don't have an ego is a liar. On that note, never forget that authors, especially fiction writers, lie for a living.

Writers look at the alchemy of words for reward. Nathaniel Hawthorne said it best: "Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them." When we construct our new creations as authors, it's the alchemy - the combining of word-elements into some tangible, frightening, thrilling, sorrowful, loving - that drives us and lends us volumes of self-worth rewards. Authors take the science of words and turn it to sorcery.

"Every writer I know has trouble writing." - Joseph Heller. New authors seem to think famous writers never struggle. They also often operate under the delusion that writing gets easier and that the distractions they allow to intrude upon their writing will go away with fame, fortune and the like. This is the ultimate myth for writers, therefore, when we write, one of our rewards is relief. We're relieved that we haven't lost it (the muse). We're relieved we still have something to say. We're relieved we're still alive. This is often reward enough. Along these same lines and well said as well, Laurie Wordholt said, "Writer's block is a disease for which there is no cure, only respite." The reward of a respite is sweet.

We all have our dark sides. Some of us actually have a bright side that others never see. The exercise of writing emboldens us to show these sides of our personalities to the world. Graycie Harmon said this, "Being an author is having angels whisper in your ear - and devils too." The reward of expression of aspects of our personalities that even our closest friends and family never see can be frightening, yes, but rewarding as well.

There are many more rewards for the author to grasp. Ultimately, this one is one I think all writers identify with on some level: "Every author in some way portrays himself in his works, even if it be against his will." A reward of writing is the sense that a piece of you as an author will live on into future generations. Great works of writing have survived for millennia. The thought that what we bleed onto the blank page may someday be picked up a thousand years from now is heady reward when one dares think it.

Writing - you gotta love it!