This is the 2nd in a series of guest posts from Thomas E. Kennedy, each focusing on questions that have empowered him - and could also empower you - as a writer.
Q: Must you write?
Thomas E. Kennedy: This is a question that I learned to ask myself from the great Austrian poet R. M. Rilke from his marvellous Letters to a Young Poet (there is a photograph of Marilyn Monroe reading it by the way).
What Rilke said to the young poet he was mentoring was, ask yourself, 'Must I write?'
If your answer is no, you have gained important self-knowledge; if you are able to quit writing, perhaps you should seriously consider doing so.
But if your answer is yes, then that matter is settled and you don’t have to waste time agonising over it. You cannot quit - writing is too important to you.
What do you think, can you quit writing?
Thomas E. Kennedy is the author of eight novels, as well as several collections of short stories and essays. He teaches creative writing at Fairleigh Dickinson University.
In the Company of Angels, published by Bloomsbury in June 2010, is one of four novels comprising the Copenhagen Quartet. It is the first of Kennedy’s books to be published in the UK.
Read Thomas E. Kennedy's first guest post, When do you become a writer?
Click to visit the official website of Thomas E. Kennedy
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To add.......
When you have the writers affliction, you'll never start something, finish it, and move on, as its a constant vicious circle.
When the spark ignites, you do what you can, and plot or map things out, though you can only go so far, as writers block will hit you.
It's at that point that you put your work to one side and pick up something else, until that gives you writers block.
Sooner or later, you run out of material, and end up back at the spark work, to which you'll read through it... see clearly where you went wrong, and start writing again, until the block kicks in.
It's a never ending circle, as so long as you have breath in your body, you live, and if you live, you question, and if you quetsion, you find sparks.
Writing to me is like a sickness or disease, and often i'll kid myself that one day, some scientists somewhere will create a medication, which will allow me to pop a pill and be cured... but that's not ever going to happen, so i'm stuck as a writer.
Why? probably because i have aspergers and can't stop myself from thinking and questioning, which creates a spark, a very basic initial spark, from which it all grows, and until such point as it becomes complete, it haunts me, so i am pushed onwards.
The worst part about being a feature screenplay writer in the uk is not knowing who all the effort is for... without a shadow of doubt, that is the main problem here.
I don't have the ability to write books, as books take a lot of discriptive content... in a screenplay, a room is a room, a bar is a bar and so on, yet with books, you have to describe the room... are the windows clean or dirty, is the wall paper nice, or old and pealing off the walls, is the carpet plush or threadbare?
With a screenplay it's a location, so having created the location, you then focus on dialogue, and so the story goes.
In the event that any of you can answer yes to the question at hand, you're probably bored, or retired, and seeking something to pass the time of day... however, if like me the answer is a no........
KEEP PRAYING FOR THAT MEDICATION BROTHER!