What drives you to write?

[millennium_bard]

Not just here on Lit. But writing fiction in general?

For me it is a definite need to write.
It's almost like an addiction. I have a hard tome resting at night unless I have put down several hundred (or more) words that day.

It doesn't matter to me if my stories get read or not in most cases. I write for the pleasure of exercising my mind.
(such as it is)

For me the best thing about Lit is that I get to put some of my works out there for anyone to read.

 

[doormouse]

Good question MB.

I wanna know the answer too LOL

I have a story I've been writing for months. Just can't get back into it. I've written anything but the story, although, I really want to write it.

 

[English Lady]

It's a need for me too. If I have a story in my mind it will have to be let out and typed up or I will go completely batty.

I can go a while with a few ideas floating about my mind but I will get to a point where I have to let it out. All my fiction is like that, and recently I surprised myself by writing a piece of Non Fiction


Definitely a need or an urge or a needful urge, something like that.

 

[millennium_bard]

My need to write got out of hand a couple of days ago, and I ended up with 3 more submissions to Lit inside of 24 hours.

With the Halloween contest going, I don't expect to see any of them approved very soon

But the urge to write keeps on building, and more stories will be submitted until Laurel et.al. get heartily sick of seeing my name pop up on thier lists.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

I have no life and I have an overactive imagination.

That and I love it and I love hearing the feedback on it and the tiny little rare victories when something gets published somewhere.

 

[doormouse]

I thrive on that too L_C.

I think I've honestly taken on too much of a challenge with my latest story.

I've chosen a name that has nothing to do with the story, apart from a psychological aspect, which makes it harder to write. I have no knowledge in that field, yet it plays a MAJOR part of the story.

I'm tired of researching.

It's a psychological thriller, done in chapters... I have the basic outline done of three chapters so far, OMG, but I can't write it convincingly enough yet to post.

It's starting to piss me off.

 

[Guest]

 

[Liar]

What drives me to write?

It's mostly an ego thing.

The prospect of having something to point at and say "I made something, I left a mark. Here, this is mine. I created this. And by god, it doesn't suck."

#L

 

[Black Tulip]

I know how I started, getting irritated by the lack of books I wanted to read. I had read them all, as far as they are available in my country. LOL And the shipping rates from the US went sky high so buying on the internet was no longer a real option.

Now, I find stories running around in my head. Instead of escaping into a book I hide inside my imagination.

And it's a lot of fun. More so, when other people appreciate my fiction. Posting at Lit is a huge bonus to the actual writing.

 

[Guest]

ive writen all my life but never shared it with anyone...until one day, i let it slip that i had "musings". i was told to publish one story here on lit and from there... well i just keep writing what is in my sick head.

usually, ill hear a sentence or a word that sparks me into a full blown story. my step brother gave me an outline to write into a story and i was completely stymied.. but...when he said one phrase, 'you sometimes know'...that sparked in me a title for one of my stories.. odd how the mind works!

 

[carsonshepherd]

I've been writing stories since I learned how to make letters. It was all I ever wanted to do, make up new worlds where everything turned out right, and new people who were always a little better than real ones. So... either I'm a total control freak, I have a major problem with reality, or both.

As far as posting on Lit, I didn't even know I was writing erotica till someone told me about this site. I was always told I should be writing more "serious" works, and so I stopped let anyone read what I wrote, and it's a rush when I get feedback praising my stories; I never thought they were any good. Writing for Lit has made me try so much harder to be a the best writer I can be, because I know people will be reading. Being anonymous I can write what I want, on my own terms, and if people like it, it's just that much better.

 

[oggbashan]

My muses.

Once they are present I can't stop writing. They were with me during last year's NaNoWriMo so I completed in 18 days.

They've been on Mount Olympus for the last few months. I hope they are back by 1st November.

Terpsichore can be a pain. She wants me to dance while typing.

Og

 

[TaintedB]

For me it's always other people. When writing fiction, other people become my muses. Sometimes it's people I know _of_, like celebrities, but more often it's the people I know personally who inspire me. I am going through a longterm bitter, hurt, and antisocial period, and as a result my fictional output is null.

With non-fiction, other people are my intended audience and what I work with is the clear imagined view I have of their informational needs. The stronger the needs I imagine in them (it's actually an educated guess, but I call it imagination because I can't really be inside anyone's emotions or motivations), the more creative I become in the ways I devise to meet those needs. Often I do not know these people personally, but on the few occasions when I have known a representative from one of my perceived audiences, the writing became better.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I’ve been writing since I was a kid. Wrote my first science fiction “novel” when I was 11 in a spiral notebook, wrote stories all through grammar school and high school. Then in college I decided I was a lousy writer and I quit for years and years. College had taught me how inadeqate I was and I gave it up. It was only when I discovered Literotica that I decided I could write as well as what I was reading, and it was only from taking anti-depressents that I finally allowed myself the slack to write less than perfectly.

I love writing. I love figuring out what will happen and describing the way things look to me. I love looking for perfect images. I feel more at home in front of the keyboard than I do in any other area of my life, and at the risk of sounding pompous, I sometimes feel like it’s the one thing I can do really well. Even though I’m never totally happy with anything I write, I at least know what’s wrong with it. I might not be able to fix it, but I can usually tell what the problem is, which is a kind of control in itself..

For all that, at least half the pleasure I get from writing is in being read. I’m not one of those people who can write something and then just tear it up. I have to have it read. I have to communicate with it.

I recently realized that I’m no longer happy unless I’m working on a story. If I don’t have something in the works, I feel grumpy and discontented and purposeless. The only thing worse is to post something and get no response. That’s downright depressing.

I'm aware of how absurd it is to have so much of myself tied up in a porn site, and lately I find myself starting to break away from porn into more 'serious' fiction. But still, writing porn puts me in a special high. Like someone once said, we write so we can taste life twice, and there are some parts you just want to taste over and over again.

---dr.M.

 

[McKenna]

Similar to Dr. Mab, I've been writing since I was very young -short stories, poems, journals... In fact, I still keep a journal today. It's one kind of writing I feel no pressure about completing; it's "my" time to let out feelings, thoughts, frustrations, what-have-you, and often those images I capture in my journal become part of the stories or essays I write.

I write to fulfill a need within to express myself clearly, to attempt to record coherently thoughts and actions, or to explore certain things I'm uncomfortable exploring "in my real life," (to name but a few reasons why I write.)

I don't have stories submitted at Lit, (though I'm thinking of submitting one for the Halloween contest!) so I can't say I write for the votes or for my "fans." I write long-winded stories in the Sexual Role Playing forum that take months to complete. I do like the the occasional words of praise, but they come far less frequent than I imagine they come from submitted stories.

I write because something inside drives me to write. The stuff I write at Lit is only a small portion of what I write in general. I write erotica because I'm a die-hard romantic and sex happens to be one of my favorite things.

 

[Guest]

 

[cloudy]

Like many here, I've been writing since I learned to put words together into sentences, and realized that I could create something that way.

I took as many writing classes as I could in junior high and high school - it helped that the school system I was in actually offered creative writing classes. Even wrote a children's book as part of an assignment one year that ended up being sold to a publisher - my teacher was the one that brought it to the publisher's attention.

Somehow, I think I can communicate my thoughts and feelings much better in writing than I can just speaking to someone. I'm not able to put the depth of feeling into my words when I speak like I can when I write.

My stories now start off as a random thought, or like Vella said, maybe a phrase I overhear. They spin around in my mind, and won't let me let them go until I work it out in my thoughts and then put it down into words. I always have a story that I'm working on. Some get written very quickly, but others take days and weeks to get to the end. Those stay in my mind, and won't go away until the story is told.

 

[Sabledrake]

I write because I have to. I can't not write. I have a ravenous creative appetite and can only keep it sated through writing and gaming. It's definitely addiction, a serious habit for which I never want to seek a cure

Sabledrake

 

[millennium_bard]

I write because I have to. I can't not write. I have a ravenous creative appetite and can only keep it sated through writing and gaming. It's definitely addiction, a serious habit for which I never want to seek a cure

Sabledrake

Precisely!
It is a consuming addiction that cannot be quit cold-turkey without serious ramifications.

 

[LadyJeanne]

I write mostly non-fiction, possibly funny short stories on ordinary things. Those stories are sparked by my adventures and experiences, so usually they just write themselves after spinning around in my head for a while.

Some articles I write end up on paper due to a muse - there are people that I really like writing to, writing for, as an audience, and that sparks my imagination.

The things I write for myself are mostly to help clarify my thoughts.

 

[carsonshepherd]

Precisely!
It is a consuming addiction that cannot be quit cold-turkey without serious ramifications.

Not only consuming but TIME-consuming. I did quit for years due to some unkind criticism from someone who thought they were smarter than me. But I've been doing it "seriously" now for about seven years.

I recently realized that I’m no longer happy unless I’m working on a story. If I don’t have something in the works, I feel grumpy and discontented and purposeless.

I'm exactly the same way; I feel impatient and disgusted with myself. When I'm deep into writing I'm fully preoccupied with it. I pace around muttering to myself and even dream about my characters.
Like you, Dr. M, it's the one thing I "think" I can do well (maybe not?) But at the same time it's the one thing I really CARE about doing well.

 

[rgraham666]

Me? I've just always been imaginative. My mind's always thinking about something.

I did write when I was younger, but stopped when I got no positive feedback from anyone. Also, because of a learning disability, I can't write long hand or use a typewriter. Now that I have a computer, I can fix my mistakes as fast as I make them.

Switched to gaming for years as an outlet. But I drifted out of the gaming community during my long illness.

Now that I have a computer and a method of positive feedback by posting my scribblings on Lit, I have a new outlet for my imagination.

So basically I write because I like it.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

My drive is the old saying "if you want something done properly, you have to do it yourself".

I write what I want to read.

Oh, and also because I love making up stories, ofcourse.

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

One of the things I remember most about my dad was his stories. He could make up stories, or tell stories about himself when he was growing up.

When his friends came around, they would reminisce, stories about events they remembered from their past. Quite often, someone would repeat a yarn that my father had already told me. That was how I learned to see the difference between how Dad told stories, and others recounted them.

The way Dad remembered them, they always had a point, and were usually couched in humor.

I learned to tell stories from my dad, from both his real and fanciful stories. Now I am trying to learn to write stories. Like my dad’s they are usually couched in what I hope most people think are humorous terms.

I don’t feel driven to write. In fact, if I don’t have an idea I prefer not to write. The trouble is that so many things give me ideas. The chore then is to sort out the good from the bad.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Recreation.