Why do so many of us want to write a book?
I'll go first.
I enjoy the act of writing and losing myself in a world of my own making. Your characters become your family and friends and their lives are infinitely more interesting than my own. Often, though, they take on a life of their own, taking you on an unexpected journey. Weird, I know, and if you don’t write, difficult to comprehend, but it’s like cause and effect are predetermined, yet the characters and their situation only exist as a product of your imagination.
A YouGov poll found ‘author’ to be the most desired job when it polled 14,000 Brits with 60% citing it as the dream profession. Only 31% wanted to be a Hollywood movie star, equal with MP and Olympic athlete. However, the poll was undertaken in 2015, arguably JK Rowling’s magic was still casting its spell. The Harry Potter creator was named the world’s highest paid author by Forbes in 2008. It would be interesting to see if author would rank top if the poll was conducted today, I suspect content creators may give author a run for its money although these people are still storytellers, just using a different format.
Identity is huge for us humans. As a parent, you take on another identity, once they’ve grown up and flown the nest (just one to go), you become a different person again. If you’re widowed, another you emerges, not necessarily phoenix-like, out of the ashes.
As a foster carer, great emphasis is placed on a child’s sense of self which, in the care system, is completely uprooted and impacts self-esteem and self-worth. Psychologist Dan McAdams has pretty much dedicated his working life to how we create our ‘narrative identity’ or how we make sense of our lives by developing our own story arc. There’s a whole profession dedicated to this in Children’s Services, the life story worker literally portrays the child’s story to help them understand how and why they came into the care system.
I think the real reason so many of us would like to write a book is because storytelling is the beating heart of human existence.
Let’s face it, we all love a good gossip. We can’t wait to hear about what such and such was up to last week, who so and so is having an affair with and how whatshisname was dished up his just desserts. Oh, we love a good story.
And we all know those people who are never happier unless they’re playing the lead in their own drama, often of their own making.
Humanity is one big seething mass of stories. Take religions (plural intentional), epics in their own right.
Stories entertain and offer an escape but they also help us make sense of the world. And in a world that’s increasingly and undeniably senseless, little wonder so many of us attempt to get to grips with it through the written word.
Us storytellers (humans) love the validation we receive when we’ve imparted something worthwhile, funny, spellbinding. Oh yes, there’s no doubt a little arrogance has a part to play, we’re all human after all.
There’s another aspect to this and that’s our own mortality. According to psychologists, we seek to impose meaning on our lives to manage our fear of death. This ‘Terror Management Theory’ leads us to build ‘immortality projects’, of which, writing a book is a classic.
So, it leaves me to wonder, whether my newfound determination to put my novel-writing self ‘out there’ is born of ‘what have I got to lose?’, especially since I have lost so much with the sudden passing of my life partner in April, or if his death has inevitably led to many of us close to him pondering our own mortality? And, perhaps, as the person closest to him, the need to make an imprint on the world before I go has now taken on its own life force.
Thanks for reading the lonely writer’s blog.