Why Write?

by

Margaret Cracknell

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Why write if your work isn’t published? Surely we don’t expect to make money each time we set down our thoughts on paper. No, it’s more than money. Being published represents success, recognition, bringing pleasure to the reader. In other words, you know being published is the golden accolade, the professional recognition of your genius. All of this would be very welcome, but it represents a great deal of dull work and enduring a lot of rejection, so I just go for the good part, the actual writing.

Taking a blank sheet of paper and creating something that has never been in the world before, that’s the good part.

I write for the sheer joy of doing it in the same way as I sketch o paint just for the pleasure of painting. No one expects a masterpiece when I draw; no one gets Gone with the Wind when I write, but oh, what pleasure it gives me, just to write. Incidentally, margaret Mitchell sent Gone with the Wind to publishers sixty-seven times before it was accepted. Now there’s endurance in the face of rejection.