Why do you write?

At my most neurotic, I write because I associate it with being accepted socially, and I believe my life only has meaning if I'm successful as a writer. It's almost as if there's no Tim, just a novel-producing machine. At my most healthy, I write because I love it. I write because my ideas are fucking cool and I want people to read them and go 'Wow!' and have a dandy old time. I guess I'm very driven and that's not a virtue, just a personality quirk.

It's the only way I can get the bank to cash my cheques.

I write just to stop me blathering and babbling away at anybody and everybody about anything and everything. It also stops me from not exactly lying in normal conversation but embroidering everything, making stories up and telling crap jokes around absurd associations that only I can see. Wish I was driven like you Rokkitnite. I also had my brush with death in a rather unfortunate way - and instead of it turning me into a driven soul aware of his frail mortality (with death sitting on my shoulder and whispering all the time, as annoyingly 'he' now does), it had the opposite effect. I took my foot off the pedal somewhat and relaxed a lot more. And in true writer's fashion, I do this 'relaxing' usually out of my face :) I don't expect to get published, if I do, it will be blind luck or just fantastic talent, both of which, I have have experienced very little of so far, heh. My urge comes in the writing and the completing of the project. Marketing is where it's all at - if you're driven, you can push any shit. But that's just not me.

to paraphrase Blazing Saddles: Lamarr: "what are your crimes?" Thug: "Writing, arson, murder, writing-" Lamarr: "You said writing twice" Thug: "I like writing"

I agree with bobblehat2000. I'm not very good at having the kinds of conversations I *should* have with certain people.... talking smack with strangers doesn't count!

I write because I can't imagine what the hell I'd do with all this shit if I didn't.

I also write coz I'm not very good at talking... generally... and, cliche though it is, I like to create fantasy worlds which are more interesting/funny/exciting than the real world (at least to me)... And when not writing fiction, writing helps me to know what I think! :-) * P * :-)

I write... 1) Because writing can sometimes be a little bit like playing Scrabble. And I love Scrabble. 2) Because I tried being a rock star and it didn't work out. 3) Because of recently flagged article regarding creative people's sex lives... 4) Because it is another way of competing with my peers. 5) Because it is portable. Like Travel Scrabble.

I agree wholehearedly with Spack's points 3 and 5. The first thing I ever wrote I did because I was bored. And it was rubbish. Somehow, since then, it's become a 'thing that I do'. Like an obligation. Of course, I enjoy it, but so often I find myself thinking, "I MUST write tonight!" Why must? Because it's a habit and I think, if you want to get all romantic about it, I feel a little like Spack's point 1 - but for me it's that aesthetic perfection that may come with a paragraph I may one day write; that one day, I'll write a few words Nabokovian, or Wildean or similar, and it will look great and eveyone will say, "Wow, that's great." Which I guess is kinda like Spack's number 4. I never tried to be a rock star. Enzo.. www.thedevilbetweenus.com

I tried to be a rock star and ended up singing in a country and western band. I write because I like it.

My best (only?) friends are literary characters. I write to have friends. Real people usually aren't very appealing (although i am very entertained by this forum). there's a lot of other reasons, but that's the one that came to mind...

when I said 'all this shit' I didn't mean bad stuff... I just meant the constant whir of glitter and sawdust in my head... it has nowhere to go if not on a page. I too like Scrabble. There's not enough of it about I reckon. The last proper conversation I had with my dad before the drugs/cancer got him involved us going on walk at 3 in the morning - he was afraid if he sat down he would die and so didn't sit down for a week and a half - and him saying, 'So, you've got an M an E a G an H an F an I a P another E... what you got?' We played imaginary scrabble for 2 hours and it was the coolest thing ever. My dad remembered the scores. And he won. The bastard.

Wow! That's fucking cool. Imaginary scrabble. There are good variants on scrabble too... one that's a bit like Rummikub but with words - is very good. You can steal someone's proud "believable" with a sneaky "un". Joe

... I write to describe myself before other people jump in and start trying to do it for me... w*!*ers

Aha - Joe, could you be referring to the middle-class classic 'Anagrab'? All you need is Scrabble tiles an aggressive wordsmiths... you know the type of middle-class Dad who gets very very competitve during boardgames and his wife's always telling him and he gets very frustrated with her and ruthlessly penalises any rule infractions by other players. Awesome.

I didn't know it was called that: Anagrab. How witty. I'm going to win the most competitive Dad competition. I wish such a thing existed.

Paging Mississippi - please report to the 'Why Do You Write?' thread. We've got an instance of text-speak that needs terminating with extreme prejudice.

To meet weird people. Well, not initially, but I've come to expect this as a matter of course, and I've got a lot weirder myself as a result. Or maybe it's just the Manchester crowd. But probably the thing is that something comes into your head and you've got to get it down, play with it, develop it and see where it takes you. In other words, I've GOT to write.

originally because the words would bubble up in my head unbidden and writing was the only way I discovered of getting rid of them. That does not happen any more, but I rather enjoy it now.

There's this cool game you can play with scrabble letters called Take 5 - where you turn over all the letters face down and everyone - you guessed it - 'takes' 5 tiles. Then you try and make scrabble connections with it, and the first person to use them all up (not on a board, just in front of you on the table and not linked to anyone's words but your own) says 'Take 5' and every so does. This goes on and on until all the tiles are gone and the first person to have all their letters out is the winner. Did that make sense, I'm wondering?

not a word

Yes, I've played that too Ferg... but with only taking two letters per turn. We played it in the playhouse the other day. Ah the dangerous youth of today.

I had a 'near life' experience once.

Oh - Spack and Foxy - I attempted to become a rock star once and succeeded in a minor way, and hated it. The music that is. The chicks throwing themselves at you was brill! The power that one had was surreal. Just because I was performing on stage with some half arsed twat, (who got lucky) made them think I was some sort of God to be bedded at the first available opportunity was - well mind boggling. Can anyone out there guess who I played with? The song (sic) was number 1 in 14 countries at one point, was number 1 in the pop charts in the States - and - laughably - number 1 in the R 'n' B charts at the same time. It has been re-released twice here and been a minor hit with slight variations both times. It can be heard at the beginning of some ads. Come on Mississippi you can do it.

''''some half arsed twat ''' Well that could be ANYBODY, or even EVERYBODY! Black Lace, Pesky? Oh that must be, 'We're Having A Gang Bang', then.

Is Styxbroox actually The Edge? Yes, I enjoyed those Scrabble variants and want to play them again. I write for the following reasons: 1) Because there's something I've been wanting to write for a while. 2) Because I have an idea for something really cool and exciting that can only be realised by my writing it. 3) Because I read over stuff I've written and think I should probably keep this up. 4) Because I read something someone else has written and take it as a challenge. 5) Because I did a creative writing Uni course that's no good for anything else.

I like your reason number 2 the best, Jon. It's also the motive that I suspects produces the best work.

I guess that styxbrook is actually Steve Pergrine Took of Tyrannosarus Rex. But I wouldn't say that Marc Bolan got lucky. Or is he Andrew Ridgely? I think not! One half of Sparks? No. Anyone else?

Is that bloke at the back in Soft Cell?

Is this twenty questions? May I start with the question... Did you work with Martin Rushent?

The song was voted no. 1 in the 'Best Of One Hit Wonders' on Channel 4 recently.

hmmm...need more clues than that, how about what year it charted or a line from the record?

I can only remember Chesney Hawkes...or maybe that's just a nightmare recollection!

ummm...Keith Harris and Orville? I wish I could fly way up to the sky but I can't....

or how about Grandad by Clive Dunn?

Yerhavinalarf camus. I think I really would have topped myself if I'd have been involved with that record. Another clue - the singer is black. He has a house here and one in Germany (okay, several clues) where he still tours extensively on the back of that one hit. And in the spirit of Christmas - 'Whoa ho ho ho!'

Chocolate salty balls by Chef from South Park...(well he's black)

The first word of the first line (God I'm enjoying this, and like my mini-fame will be just as fleeting) 'Everybody' Yahgottagetitnow. Come on Miss Pee Pee you can do it.

I WISH BBf! No he's a Jamaican guy.

You got it bbf!

Now back to the original thread: And whomever complained that we'd got off the track, these threads have a life of their own, I think it makes them interesting. Why does anyone create? Why did the cavemen scrawl on the walls? It's human nature and is what separates us from animals. And before the animal rights people get their knickers in a twist, if you can show me a horse that can draw I'll eat my own dictum

Who on earth is Carl Douglas? Must be before my time!

oh...just googled, have heard of song...would NEVER in a million years known who had sang it though.

Hahah..yeah right! Bet you bought the record and pranced around pretending you were Bruce lee!

Believe me, when you have to rehearse the song 18 times in an evening the original liking for a piece of pop ephemera soon wains. He also thought that he was Al Green re-visited and tried to get us to play it at that lax tempo that the Willie Mitchell rhythm section used for Al Green. Didn't work. But because he was no. 1 in so many countries no one was willing to stand up and tell him so. He does actually have a good voice, but he behaved like such a tit that I let it be known through my body language. Oh yes, I think what got me the sack was saying to one of his then idiot managers, when he said to me 'why don't you try to play it this way.' Don't. Say. That. To. Me. When you are an idiot. I just got up from the drums and said 'you're such a smartarse - you play it.' I knew he'd played drums in the past - but he was shit. But that was the beginning of the end, we as the band that were backing him were a band in our own right and fucking good, and I was ticked off that we'd been sidelined into backing that shit. If I had my time again I'd have said no from the off, we had good people behind us, one of them was Alex Harvey who at one point was trying to steal me. Sadly he was a drunk who died on stage in Germany. I was also sounded out by a woman called Brenda Arnau who we did a one night stand for on a New Years Eve if I'm not mistaken. She was a much funkier version of Shirley Bassey and went onto regularly appearing on The Benny Hill Show. I know it's shit but when you're there you can start sounding out better gigs. I remember that she had some kind of brain tumour and retired, had an op. and came back and did The Albert Hall, but sadly died due to her physical problems. I always remember what she said to me at the end of that days rehearsal, 'You are so foxy!' I think I came in my pants as she turned and swished off in that white fur coat she had draped over her shoulders. This was a seriously gorgeous woman - think Halle Berry with a belter of a voice. The guitarist saw this and said, 'See that guy she's with? he's a multi-millionaire - out of your league old son.' Story of my life. Maybe I should start writing about my 17 years in the music biz.

I am like the thug on Blazing Saddles: I like writing