Is writing fun?

Is writing fun?
Well… yes and no.
We often hear about authors who can’t stand the creative process behind writing yet feel compelled to do it for whatever reason, whether that reason is to achieve some sort of literary catharsis, an obsessive compulsion to put pen to paper, or simply the need to generate the next pay cheque.

I was intrigued recently by an article in The Guardian which asked a selection of popular authors what motivated them to keep writing and if they actually enjoyed the creative process. I’ll come on to some of their responses later.

Some of these authors inhabit the same sort of world that I do, when I’m sat in the studio try to create the latest “This Morning Call” masterpiece. What exactly drives me to continue to try and write songs? Why, even at the expense of spending time with friends, or being usefully employed in some other gainful employment, or spending valuable time mending the broken back gate or painting the bathroom, do I insist on spending at least a proportion of everyday sat twiddling in the studio or playing the guitar in an often fruitless attempt to “get something good down”.

Indeed, it not as if I could say writing music was paying the bills. You have to be incredibly fortuitous, talented and involved in a genre within which there is sufficient commercial interest to actually generate any significant cash from music. Even then, you have to hope that you will tap into national radio play, and have sufficient marketing clout from a limited number of ailing “major” labels or big independents to stand any chance of reaching a large audience. Arguably, the arrival of social networking has really only succeeded in diluting the market with “average” bands that has made it even harder for quality to get noticed.

Yet, despite the odds, I persevere. And looking back over some of the crappy tunes that I’ve come up with in the past, God knows why! Yes, faithful reader, there have been some real clangers that I thought were the bees knees at the time. It can be rather sobering to go back an revisit some of your earlier works, especially with the dawning realisation that you probably sent at least a selection of these out as demos or at the very least insisted that they were played at a mates house party! I wish I could once again share the delights of “Do you Feel Loved?” – an awkwardly camp and overblown disco classic that I can safely say has been shelved forever.  Woe betide anyone who asks me to dust off such classics as “Second Sight”, which despite boasting a lovely string line, has a schmaltzy, meandering vocal and, lets face it, lyrically is a load of random ideas thrown together completely without focus. I completely revised my approach to writing lyrics following this debacle. One of the few benefits of finishing these tunes, despite their flaws, was the fact that I now knew how not to do it!

I think I’ve been trying to write songs ever since primary school, and with such a deep rooted, psychological need, I can’t imagine myself ever being able to stop. I can genuinely feel that my writing has improved. In fact, I think its sitting back and listening to something that you’ve worked on that has really come together that is my favourite part of the creative process. I’ve sometimes found myself sitting down at the computer to work on an arrangement and just wished that the damn thing was finished already, and then I can have my moment, the “last listen before bed” as I like to call it. That phrase makes sense when you realise that most of the writing and recording happens between the hours of 9pm and midnight. Practicalities dictate that one has to think about ones neighbours. In fact, I’m amazed that there has only been one occasion when they have banged on the wall to shut me up!

So what do some of these authors have to say about their own experiences? Of course, all of these guys are writing professionally and therefore have a big advantage over me in two areas – they sell books, they have a measure of critical acclaim, and don’t have day jobs. I wonder how that changes things…

Hari Kunzru ....
I get great pleasure from writing, but not always, or even usually. Writing a novel is largely an exercise in psychological discipline – trying to balance your project on your chin while negotiating a minefield of depression and freak-out. Beginning is daunting; being in the middle makes you feel like Sisyphus; ending sometimes comes with the disappointment that this finite collection of words is all that remains of your infinitely rich idea. Along the way, there are the pitfalls of self-disgust, boredom, disorientation and a lingering sense of inadequacy, occasionally alternating with episodes of hysterical self-congratulation as you fleetingly believe you've nailed that particular sentence and are surely destined to join the ranks of the immortals, only to be confronted the next morning with an appalling farrago of clichés that no sane human could read without vomiting. But when you're in the zone, spinning words like plates, there's a deep sense of satisfaction and, yes, enjoyment…....

Will Self....
I gain nothing but pleasure from writing fiction; short stories are foreplay, novellas are heavy petting – but novels are the full monte. Frankly, if I didn't enjoy writing novels I wouldn't do it – the world hardly needs any more and I can think of numerous more useful things someone with my skills could be engaged in. As it is, the immersion in parallel but believable worlds satisfies all my demands for vicarious experience, voyeurism and philosophic calithenics. I even enjoy the mechanics of writing, the dull timpani of the typewriter keys, the making of notes – many notes – and most seductive of all: the buying of stationery. That the transmogrification of my beautiful thoughts into a grossly imperfect prose is always the end result doesn't faze me: all novels are only a version- there is no Platonic ideal. But I'd go further still: fiction is my way of thinking about and relating to the world; if I don't write I'm not engaged in any praxis, and lose all purchase.....

Please visit the guardian website – there’s a few more of these – unfortunately I haven’t got the reference or the credits right here now.

Ben