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
you must write till writers block stops you. it is like a traffic officer, you see.
Do I need to write? Yes! But don’t ask me why or how this unrelenting desire ever started to take over my entire daily thoughts. Sometimes I listen to people in regular jobs complaining about their “Groundhog Day” routine and look to the sky and think to myself how lucky I am. Sometimes I absolutely grind to a writing block and wonder why I cant get one of these regular jobs and maybe the need to succeed as a writer would disappear and life would be simpler. But I NEVER wish that this little talent I have been given and the compulsion to succeed that it delivers would ever evaporate and leave a massive void of uncertainty in my one and only existence.
I think that this is a bit of a silly question. If you must write, then you do and if not, then why waste your time?