Do you write for yourself, or do
you write only with the hope of landing an agent or making a sale? It’s a
question every writer bumps into sooner or later, usually on a day when the
words aren’t flowing or the rejections are piling up. But for me, the answer
has always been clear: I write for myself first.
I love the act of writing. I love
the quiet ritual of sitting alone with a blank page, the way the world falls
away as soon as the first sentence appears. There’s a kind of electricity in
that moment — a spark that says, something is happening here. It’s
fun, it’s exhilarating, and it’s deeply satisfying in a way that’s hard to
explain to anyone who hasn’t felt it. Writing is one of the few pursuits where
you can be completely alone and yet feel entirely connected — to your
imagination, to your characters, to something larger than yourself.
Over the years, I’ve optioned or
sold a handful of screenplays. That’s always gratifying, of course. But there
are many more — many more — that never made it past my desk.
They’re tucked away in a drawer or stacked in a box in the back of my storage
unit, gathering dust. And here’s the surprising part: I don’t regret a single
one of them. I enjoyed writing those scripts. Every last page. The success
wasn’t in the sale; it was in the making.
Because if you don’t love the
process — the strange, joyful alchemy of inventing characters, building worlds,
shaping moments, hearing dialogue spark to life — then what are you doing here?
Writing without joy is like cooking without tasting, or painting without color.
It becomes mechanical, joyless, a grind. And what a bleak fate that would be:
to spend your days wrestling with stories you don’t love, chasing approval
instead of discovery.
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