The Divining Wand

[ In Seré Prince Halverson's revealing Q&A, the debut author of The Underside of Joy claimed: "I became a writer because I loved to write, and I was blessed with an utter lack of any other talent."

Today, the author digs even deeper and shares precisely why she writes. ]

This question, Why do I write?, comes to me about a month after my debut novel, The Underside of Joy, was published and about twenty years after I began writing my first novel.

No, that is not a typo. That “twenty” should not have been a “two.” Although, believe me, for many years, I thought it should have been.

So if it took me twenty years to get published, you might—quite understandably—get the impression that I was a terrible writer who had no business trying to write a novel, or that I must have been playing at writing and not really working that hard at it. Or that I simply had really rotten luck.

It’s true that my writing has improved over the years, but looking back at my earlier efforts, I don’t immediately cringe or race to throw all of them into the woodstove. Before I began my first novel, I had been taking workshops and writing short stories and studying craft. I was serious about this writing thing. I got feedback from professional writers who both praised my efforts and made valuable suggestions. I subscribed to Poets & Writers and literary magazines. I read books upon books. My boys were three and six years old at the time, and I began getting up at 4:30 in the morning so I could write before their little pajama-clad feet hit the ground running.

At that time, literary magazines frowned upon simultaneous submissions, and so I mailed my short story manuscripts out one by one (in stamped manila envelopes and SASEs for return, if you’re old enough to remember those), waiting months and months before I received another rejection letter. I remember when C. Michael Curtis, the fiction editor at Atlantic Monthly, wrote me a note on a rejection slip, and I jumped around the house in glee. My first husband said, “But I thought it was a rejection.” And I said, “It is, it is! But he wrote me a note!”

I kept on writing in the wee hours of morning, through the rejections and a divorce, years as a single mom, a long-distance relationship, another marriage with two young stepdaughters—as my sons’ little pajama-clad feet grew into size thirteen basketball shoes and football cleats and a couple of smaller, daintier feet donning tap and soccer shoes joined them.

There had been one awful, very long dry spell, during and after my divorce, when I didn’t write fiction, but I kept a journal. There were times when my novel sat on the back burner simmering while I met advertising copywriting deadlines, but I’d still scribble notes about characters or plot as I tried to focus on writing a headline or tagline. I wrote three and a half novels. I got my first agent. I spoke to editors interested in my work. I had a lot of very close calls. But still, no one said Yes.

And yet, I still said yes to writing. Why?

Why do I write? Do I write so I can have my work published? Of course I wanted to be published, but if that were the primary reason, I suppose I would have quit writing years ago. Is it beyond gratifying to have my work out in the world, to receive notes from readers instead of rejection slips, to experience a dream realized? Yes, yes, and yes.

But I wrote for twenty years without all that, without a yes, and I still loved writing, even needed it, and felt lucky to have it. I never said, “That’s it! I’m outta here.” (Well, I may have said it, but I was only bluffing and my writing knew it. You could almost see the manuscript smirking, could almost hear it say, “She’ll be back.”)

So why do I write? (“Tell us, already,” I can hear you mutter…But you see, I had to write all this to find my truest answer…)

Writing takes a lot from me, but it gives more. Man, does it give. There is an optional something more that each day offers us, but we have to be willing to step across the threshold in order to receive it. For me, writing is my entrance into that more. For some, music is the doorway. For others it is the swift pounding of feet on a track or across a stage, the in and out of the breath during prayer or meditation, the rhythm of expert stitches sewn along a stretch of silk or into a human heart. For me, the doorway is the scratching of pen on paper and the tapping of my fingertips on keys. For me, that’s how the light cracks through those dark early mornings, the light that allows me to see and feel and sometimes even give that something more.

Book Giveaway: The Divining Wand is giving away one copy of Seré Prince Halverson’s debut novel The Underside of Joy — in a random drawing — to anyone who leaves a comment on this post by 8:59 p.m. EST tonight! The winner will be announced here tomorrow.

[Given Erika Liodice's success in writing/publishing her debut novel Empty Arms in Kindle Edition, NOOK Book and Paperback, one might think that becoming an author was a childhood dream. Yet, in today's guest post, Erika tells how her journey to novelist began on the path to self-discovery.]

Growing up I often heard people say, “I found myself at college.” It led me to the delusion that finding oneself was some sort of transcendental experience involving rays of light and smoke clouds of wisdom that could envelop you right in the middle of a keg stand or flaming Dr. Pepper shot. I wish someone would’ve warned me that my metamorphosis was going to be dark and lonely…and take my entire 20s.

But they didn’t. So I ventured off to college and waited patiently for my lightning bolt realization. To my disappointment, the only thing I learned about myself during those four years was how incredibly hard I had to work just to keep my head above water.

Always the optimistic, I figured that my grand discovery would come during my summer backpacking trip through Europe. After all, I’ve had an insatiable wanderlust ever since I first set foot on an airplane when I was six years old, so wouldn’t it be appropriate for my magical epiphany to happen while I was surrounded by rich cultures, exotic foods, romantic languages, and soul-stirring views?

You’d think. Instead, the only thing I learned about myself during those six weeks was how short my fuse can be when I’m overly hot, overly tired, or overly hungry. I returned home no closer to understanding what made me tick or what I had to offer the world. My “truth” eluded me.

With no clear direction of what I wanted, I accepted a well-paying entry-level job at a reputable pharmaceutical company. Since I hadn’t found myself in college or in Europe, I hoped that ascending the rungs of the corporate ladder would hold the answer.

And so I began the climb. I got promoted, chased higher salaries, and even switched companies a few times, desperately trying to uncover the missing ingredient that many of my friends and colleagues had found. Everyone around me seemed happy with their titles, salaries, and job responsibilities, but meanwhile I had the nagging sense that my life was slipping by.

Eventually, I gave up on the notion of finding myself and focused instead on finding happiness. In my free time, I took classes that interested me: graphic design, photography, commercial arts, sculpture, sewing, Pilates. I joined a book club. I taught myself how to cook. I volunteered. I even dragged my non-religious butt to church and studied the Bible. Happiness came in dribs and drabs, but it never stuck around for very long.

Then one day, my husband came home from work and told me a story that nearly brought me to tears. Out of nowhere, the desire to write a novel bowled me over. I started that very day. Thinking it would probably end up being another one of my “flavor of the month” creative undertakings, I didn’t pay it much mind. But then that day turned into a week, and that week turned into a month, and soon I was waking up at 5 a.m. so I could write for two hours before work. A couple of years later, I had a manuscript. A few years after that, I had another.

In the end, I didn’t find myself at college or while backpacking through Europe or while working in Corporate America. I found myself in those cold, dark hours of the morning hunched before the glow of my computer. It taught me that I am a writer. That is my truth. That is what brings me happiness.

That is why I write.

Book Giveaway: The Divining Wand is giving away one copy of Erika Liodice’s Empty Arms — in a random drawing — to anyone who leaves a comment on this post by 8:59 p.m. EST tonight! The winner will be announced here tomorrow.

[Dee DeTarsio (The Scent of Jade and ROS) wears her favorite author's heart on her sleeve. As a result, in this Valentine's Day guest post, Dee takes the opportunity to explain/share her feelings of "reader love."]

“To Marian Keyes – and to the Marian Keyes in every woman – that smart, funny, sad, put-upon, brave part of your soul that makes this world a brighter place.”

I am stalking Marian Keyes. She’s a Virgo, I’m a Virgo. She’s a successful internationally recognized goddess of an author, and I … well, I’ve read everything she’s ever written. I expect we would be best friends. Her most excellent Ms. Keyes is from Ireland – I love the color green. From her first book, Watermelon, (my seventh favorite fruit) to Sushi for Beginners, (I’m only up to California rolls myself) to Anybody Out There — I have loved, read, and reread every word. We are practically sisters.

Goddess Marian Keyes (pictured left) … and her doppelganger, my sister, Beezer, who I sometimes call an eejit!

There is good news on the horizon: Marian Keyes is coming out with a new book–a cookbook, (or cookery as Marian and I like to call it) Saved by Cake, to be released February 16, 2012.

“Saved by Cake” gives an extremely honest account of Marian Keyes’ recent battle with depression, and how baking has helped her. A complete novice in the kitchen, Marian decided to bake a cake for a friend and that was it – she realized that baking was what she needed to do in order to get her through each day. And so she baked, and she wrote her recipes down, and little by little the depression has started to lift, along with her sponges…With chapters on cupcakes, cheesecakes, meringues and macaroons, chocolate cakes, fruit cakes and favourite classics, Marian’s recipes are aimed firmly at beginner bakers, offering hints and tips to help along the way.

There is icing on that cake–rumor has it that Marian Keyes also has a new novel coming out this Fall–featuring the youngest Walsh sister, Helen!

Oh my gosh. I have an apron that looks almost like Marian’s. (I am such a gobshite!)

[Julianna Baggott (complete listing of her books) is an author who writes across genres, believing they complement rather than are separate from each other.

Available today is the author's riveting, breakout novel PURE -- the first volume in her post-apocalypse thriller trilogy. It's based on Julianna's background of magical realism. That is what she writes and, in this guest post, she explains why.]

I’m answering this question late at night — in a usually loud house now quiet. The kids are asleep in bedrooms nearby. My husband is in asleep downstairs, my parents in the guest room, the dogs on dog pillows out for the night. It’s dark except for this glow.

I’m here as a moth, batting against light.

I’m here because I’ve learned that writing – this twitch of my fingers – is really rooted deep inside of me. It’s a way of running your hands through the reeds, the silt – the kind of silt still clouding the day, the kind settled (like memory) waiting to be stirred.
I’m here because my mind has things to run through.

I’m here because this is a place I’ve come to know. The white page, patient as snow.

I’m here because I’ve lived this day as a writer – meaning I’ve lived doubly. I’ve lived it as myself and I’ve lived it to pull from it what I need to remake a world. Or, no, I’ve spent the day collecting and now I have these things to shine up and set against each other.

I’m here to make. I have the human desire to create something from nothing.

The day’s done, but I’m not done with it. I miss it already. I long for what’s slipped by. I want to keep. I’m here because I hoard the days. I hoard our fragile lives.

I write because sometimes there are too many words to keep up with. They’re noisy. They churn in the chest like a motor.

Where else would I go? What else would I do?

I’m here because the world itself doesn’t do what I want it to do. In fact, it’s unruly, unpredictable.

I’m here because when in deep, that unruly world (that brutal world) slips away. I am immersed. I’ve found warm water. There’s the silt again.

I’m here writing because I want to give something. I want to be put to good use. Here, I say, here and here. Fistfuls. Any use?

Book Giveaway: To celebrate the release day of PURE, The Divining Wand will give away one copy of the book — in a random drawing — to anyone who leaves a comment on this post before the deadline of 8:59 p.m. EST tonight! If you enter, please return tomorrow when the winners of both Book Giveaways will be announced.

[Last January 20, 2011, Eleanor Brown debuted with her "delightful" novel The Weird Sisters (presentation/review) and, within a week, she became a New York Times bestselling author. Amazing? Well actually the story of "sibling rivalry, the power of books, and the places we decide to call home" deserved every bit of acclaim and attention.

For those who have yet to enjoy this reading experience, today is your day as The Weird Sisters is released in its paperback edition. Also Eleanor begins another Book Tour....if she's scheduled for your hometown, treat yourself to a meeting/signing for this talented novelist who shares why she writes.]

Like many American girls, I spent much of middle school on the phone, chatting with my friends. It seems ridiculous now, in this age where email and texting have proven themselves much more efficient forms of communication, but I suppose that was the point. We weren’t interested in efficiency, my friends and I. We were talking things through, asking each other questions about things we liked (Duran Duran) and didn’t like (gym class), considering the possibilities of our lives: boys we might be interested in, homework assignments we had yet to tackle, plays and sports we might try out for, and the unfathomable distant future of adulthood.

In his novella, The Body, on which the movie Stand by Me was based, Stephen King’s narrator says, “I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, did you?” I actually do still have friends like the ones I had when I was twelve – I even have a few of the same ones – but our friendships are not the same. The idea of having enough long, empty hours to fill with meandering conversation seems indulgent, and we have, at this point in our lives, a less pressing need to discuss Duran Duran.

But I do still find myself with the kind of questions of identity and meaning I had when I was twelve, though I am better able to articulate and label them as such. And since my friends and I cannot talk those questions through on a daily basis, I must try to work out the answers myself.

And so, I write.

When I began writing The Weird Sisters, I was turning thirty, and, in the way that those decade birthdays have, it was shaking my faith in the status quo. That question I had mused over with such idle curiosity as a teenager – what was I going to be when I grew up? – now seemed terrifying and imminent, if not woefully overdue. And so I created three sisters, split my confusion and my personality traits among them, and set out to write my way out of my precocious midlife crisis. All the things I was wondering about came out in that book: What does it mean to be an adult? Why are family roles so persistent, so impossible to change? How do you relate to your parents when you are an adult? Why do I always feel like a failure? Can you change the person you always thought you were?

Those are big questions, and I can’t say I resolved them all in the pages of The Weird Sisters, but writing that book did give me a great blessing: it forced me to spend time with each one, often more than was comfortable. I faced mistakes I’d made, people I’d hurt, the way I had been careless with my own heart, all through the problems of these fictional sisters. I held each question to the light like a gem and watched the light reflecting off it until I had considered all its facets. And if I didn’t find the answers to the questions, I do think I found peace in them.

The page has infinite patience. It lets me say ridiculous things and then retract them a moment later without judgment. It allows me to change my mind at will, to wander off on seemingly unrelated tangents and then circle back around to find the perfect thing to say. It is as broad and as narrow as I need it to be at any moment.

Someone asked me recently why I read, and my answer was instantaneous: to understand, and to connect. And I think these are the same reasons I write. In stories, as both a reader and a writer, I am trying on lives, meeting new people, learning. I am twelve, lying on the linoleum of the kitchen floor, the phone cord twisted around my finger, talking my way through the mysteries of life with my closest friends.

ATTENTION: Please remember that Catherine McKenzie’s debut novel SPIN makes its U.S. launch today.
AND

Book Giveaway: In celebration of paperback release day for The Weird Sisters, The Divining Wand will give away one copy of the book — in a random drawing — to anyone who leaves a comment on this post by 8:59 p.m. EST tonight! The winner will be announced here on Thursday.

[Danielle Younge-Ullman debuted in July 2008 with Falling Under (do read presentation/review) -- a book this Fairy Godmother described as painfully breathtaking and brutally exquisite. And it remains so in its Kindle Editon and NOOK Book format.

Today, in this guest post, the author focuses on her inspiration for the novel, and what makes the story passionately honest.]

It’s kind of a pretty word, a word that suggests something beautiful, like a butterfly landing on your fingertip, or a beam of sunlight bursting from the clouds.

But I was mad when I wrote FALLING UNDER. Furious, in fact. And the issues I was furious about are what sparked and drove the writing of the book.

Inspiration didn’t come to me like a butterfly, in other words, or even a beam of sunlight. More like a burning astroid, or a Mac truck.

The thing I was on about, and angry about, is what happens to kids when their parents divorce, particularly when those parents cease to function as parents, leaving the kids to navigate the world on their own…to essentially parent themselves.

Here’s a short excerpt from Chapter Sixteen that will give you an example. (My protagonist, Mara, has just been kicked out of her mother’s house.)

“The morning you arrive with your huge suitcase, Dad tries the heart-to-heart, but it’s not helpful to have him rant about what a bitch Mom is and then punch the wall beside the fridge, get hammered that night, and refuse to go to work the next day.

Certain kinds of support are worse than none at all.”

Sure, divorce is an everyday kind of tragedy these days. And yes, kids are elastic, adaptable, they survive. Sometimes they adapt so well on the surface that nobody sees how deeply and profoundly their view of the world has changed; how hurt they are, how alone they feel, how much more precarious everything seems to them, how much less they trust.

Mara, is a sensitive kid, a smart kid, a funny kid, and also a survivor. But the decisions she makes, as a result of having no stability and no parental figures she can trust or go to for guidance, are not often the best. The results are sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking, often both. And Mara grows up to be a mass of contradictions and unfulfilled potential—so afraid of the world that she can barely leave her house most days, stuck in a horrible artistic and professional rut, and burdened by a past littered with disastrous romantic (and sexual) relationships.

Mara’s adult life is consistent with what studies and statistics say, which is that many of the effects of divorce become evident only when a child reaches adulthood and confronts adult relationships. These are conflicted people who’ve had to rely on themselves, and don’t necessarily know how to function in a trusting relationship. They are also (statistically) likely to be less educated, more substance-addicted, less financially stable, less emotionally and psychologically stable, more likely to marry early, more likely to divorce…and it goes on. Unfortunately these stats are true of the adult children of all divorced families, including the amicable and “good” divorces, though of course the more stability and support provided by parents, family and community, the better chances the child/grown-child has of thriving.

Think about what that means, in a society where 50% of people are getting divorced…

Now I want to be clear: I am NOT on an anti-divorce rant. There are people who shouldn’t stay together, people who can’t.

I simply wanted to tell a story that would pull people, as viscerally as possible, into Mara’s experience, so that they would understand it. I wanted to reach out to adults and young adults who have been through this and maybe wonder why they (possibly) feel screwed-up and are not coping, and let them know they’re having a normal reaction, and that they can work through it. And I wanted to reach out to parents who may have divorced, or be considering it, and give them a sense of how it might affect their children, how important it is for them to continue to provide as much stability and leadership and understanding as possible, so their kids can better cope with whatever happens.

And then, if it’s not too much to ask, I’d also like society as a whole to start doing a better job at supporting families in crisis. Because THAT would be inspiring…in the beam-of-sunlight-bursting-through-the-clouds sort of way.

You can follow Danielle on Twitter, friend her on Facebook, and download Falling Under on your Kindle or NOOK Book.

[The decision to reopen The Divining Wand was based on the goal of offering more diversity in both books and authors. For example, today's guest showcases other forms of storytelling to prove how a writer can transition between formats and highlight his natural talent. Enjoy!]

Daniel Pyne has been at home in the world of film, TV, and books for over 30 years. His long list of screenwriting credits include The Manchurian Candidate, Fracture, Any Given Sunday, and Miami Vice. Currently, he is a writer, executive producer, and co-showrunner on JJ Abrams’ new TV show Alcatraz on FOX. He is also author of the cult noir novel, Twentynine Palms (which was also made into a feature film). His new novel, A Hole In The Ground Owned by a Liar was released on January 17th.

What I Write

I never really intended to be a screenwriter.

It was supposed to be a fallback position I would take while developing my prose writing skills, and in case I couldn’t make enough money to support myself writing the fiction I loved. You know. Serious fiction. Write one episode of television a year, a movie here and there. Imagine my surprise to discover that screenwriting was a career that people spent their lives mastering and that – initially, anyway – the skills required were hardly compatible with the skills required to write a short story, or novel. Not that they weren’t equivalent. Just different.

But as the literary magazine rejection slips piled up, it became clear to me that I might have to take a different path and, because my writing was always peculiarly visual, the shift to screenplays was, eventually, both gratifying and right for me.

I loved movies. I loved dialogue, and description – so much so that much of the early criticism of my scripts was that they were too literary, e.g. too many words. It’s a fair comment and a sin of which I am still guilty.

Oh well.

Screenwriting is the art of visual storytelling embellished by dialogue – one picture followed by another, and another, until the story concludes. Television (I’m sorry) is radio with pictures. Short stories are almost impossibly hard. And novels live in the imagination of the reader, requiring a kind of painting with words.

It hasn’t been that difficult for me to move between the different disciplines. I think, however, ironically that it took many years of screenwriting to prepare me for novels. The concision of a screenplay, the momentum, the architecture have all bled across into my prose storytelling more than I ever would have believed possible. Initially, the hardest thing was letting go of the rigid discipline of “showing and not telling.” The internal life of a character in a film, or on television, is the product of indirection and suggestion. You can never know what they’re thinking, you must express it with an action, or through dialogue, or in the spaces between the action and the dialogue, like a kind of bastardized free verse poetry with its own syntax and shorthand.

At first, it was a fitful process, in which my prose fiction characters would move and then think, move again, and then think again. It’s probably just that the underlying foundations of each form are so at odds: film is the art of discovering how much you can leave out and still tell your tale, novels are an endless process of discovering how much you can put in before your reader loses interest and falls out of the chair.
Using the past tense was also a challenge, strangely. You get so used to present tense writing screenplays that you forget how much it defines your style. Screenplays are inherently sloppy – sentence fragments, funky grammar, half-formed thoughts. Screenplays are a gesture.

And yet.

Writing screenplays has liberated me for prose writing. I’m no longer intimidated by the blank page, or the necessity of the perfect word, the perfect phrasing, the perfect idea. There’s a powerful momentum in a movie narrative, carrying you forward in the way that the great novels will, pulling you instead of pushing you.

Unfortunately it doesn’t work both ways. The more prose I write, the less patience I have for the blunt force trauma of movie and television storytelling where subtlety is generally discouraged, and the end product (a script) is just something transient to get everybody to agree to make a movie that may or may not, in the end, be what you wrote. And I’ve been so over-exposed to novels written solely with the intention of selling them to a movie company, that I am even more determined to take what I’ve learned as a twenty-first century screenwriter and bring it back to the prose form in a way that can tell stories in a new and dynamic voice without surrendering all that is unique about books, and that has stood the test of time.

The first time I saw my prose printed, and bound – and realized that it would never get changed, noted, revised, re-interpreted, spun, overanalyzed or subjected to audience testing – I was blown away.
People would read my words, and my words would tell a story, beginning to end, without mediation.

What a concept.

“Daniel Pyne’s A Hole in the Ground Owned By a Liar will put to rest any idle fantasies the reader may have of setting out prospecting for gold. A harrowingly funny story of brotherly strife, amorous misconduct, and small dreams blown disastrously out of proportion. I loved it.” –Scott Phillips, author of The Adjustment and national bestseller The Ice Harvest

“Smart, sexy, funny, and a brilliant storyteller. And that’s just me. Wait till you read Dan . . . ” –Eric Idle

Now a major thank you to Daniel Pyne for providing an excerpt that exemplifies his hybrid style between book and screenplay. Yes there’s (more…)

[ After 11 years as an independent bookseller and buyer Lauren Baratz-Logsted (most recent The Twin's Daughter, Sisters 8 complete series, The Bro-Magnet published in both Kindle and NOOK Book) decided to try her hand at writing and, as is known, discovered success. And, while a complete page lists what she writes, today Lauren answers the question of why.]

The Cliff Notes version? Because I have stories to tell.

The expanded version? The truth is, there are two different kinds of writing for me, best exemplified by how I approach drafts. The first draft of a book is for my own entertainment. That’s why I wrote THE BRO-MAGNET, a comedy about an ultimate man’s man who’s been Best Man eight times when what he really longs to be is a groom. Even though my writing career started with comedic novels for adults, in recent years my focus and success has been in YA and children’s books, so it wasn’t like the traditional publishing world was clamoring for more adult books from me. But I’d gotten the idea, it tickled my fancy, and I couldn’t help but write it because I needed to see how the story would turn out. Once I was finished, I decided maybe others would enjoy it too, so I decided I might publish it as an ebook. Then I started revising.

Remember when I said the first draft was for me? Well, all subsequent drafts are with the audience in mind. Flash-forward to yesterday. I was on Twitter when I came across people who I’d never spoken to before, trading tweets about what the funniest scene in the book was for each. That cat scene that had given me so much pleasure to write? They’d loved it. And the Barn Opera? They thought that was a hoot too. In fact, they thought the whole book was hysterical. Seeing that made it a good day to be me. So that’s why I write: to please myself and to please others.

Oh, and in case your wondering where the title THE BRO-MAGNET came from…

My husband, Greg Logsted, is a novelist by night and a window washer by day. One day he told me about washing some guy’s windows with his crew and how every time he goes to this guy’s house, the guy says, “Let’s go skiing sometime”; “Let’s do this”; “Let’s do that.” It occurred to me that this was not the first time in the 28 years I’ve known Greg that I’d heard something like this: some guy, barely even knowing my husband, wanting to bond and become buddies. This particular instance happened right around the time the word “bromance” entered the lexicon strongly – you’d hear people applying it to TV shows like “House” or films like the Sherlock Holmes versions Robert Downey Jr stars in. Suddenly my brain went poof! like it always does when I have an idea for a new book. Those ideas always begin with “What if…?” In this case, it was “What if there was an ultimate man’s man, a guy that other guys actually fight over to get him to be Best Man at their weddings, but he secretly longs to be a groom?” And of course the hero of this book would be THE BRO-MAGNET.

[Although Canadian author Catherine McKenzie's debut novel was a national bestseller in Canada, SPIN is finally being launched here in the U.S. on Tuesday, February 7, 2012. That's great news for all readers since it was praised by Publishers Weekly as:

“[A] charming debut…With fresh, fast-paced storytelling and a personable, self-deprecating protagonist, McKenzie whirls a perfectly indulgent tale.”

Arranged, the author’s second novel, will also have a U.S. publication on May 15, 2012.

Catherine was born and raised in Montreal, Quebec, where she now practices law. An avid runner and skier, she also sits on various boards and professional organizations, and has taught part-time at the McGill Faculty of Law. However, in today’s guest post, she explains and shares why she writes.]

A while ago, an author friend of mine, who was feeling a bit of writing ennui, expressed the possibility of giving it all up. He was tired of the late nights writing after his day job, and since his books, while critically acclaimed, weren’t selling as well as Dan Brown’s, he wondered why he was putting in all this effort. “I’m not doing this for my ego,” he said, and those words have stuck with me ever since.

They’ve stuck with me though I admit that my first reaction was skepticism. My first book had just come out, and if I’m being honest, the month of January, 2010 was pretty full of ego. (In fact, I dubbed it “the month of me” and was thoroughly sick of myself by February). But at that moment, I remember thinking that the whole act of publishing a book—from writing, to getting an agent, to getting a book deal—had to be at least partially about ego.

And of course it is. But the more I thought about it, and the further I got past my own publication date, I began to understand what he meant. You see, that first novel, that first real novel that you get the agent and the book deal with, that novel isn’t written because of ego. I suspect it might be a little different in every case, but in my own, that novel was written because I couldn’t help myself. It was (often) all I could think about. What was this character going to do? How was I going to get from this conflict to the resolution? How was I going to get the images in my mind, seemingly so clear, down on the page when the link between my brain and my fingers often felt ephemeral. I was, in my own way, like Dylan, trying to capture “that wild mercury sound” in my head with words. And the effort, while sometimes trying and frustrating, was in the main fun.

Now it might have been hubris to think, once all the writing, editing, and endless drafts were done, that someone might want to publish this book. And I might have been seeking to gratify my ego (and have had that ego gratified) when I got an agent and a book deal. But in between those events (two years from finished manuscript to book deal, another six months to publication), there was lots and lots of rejection; lots of blows to the ego. And this mix of gratification and blows continued once my book came out. Because even if you’re Jonathan Franzen—which I make no pretension to be—there are people who dislike your book, who might even hate it. Sometimes those people are book reviewers with access to a large audience of readers. And because we live in the age of social networks and email addresses on author websites, readers can reach right out and touch you with their thoughts, negative or positive, as soon as they put your book down.

This might sound like I’m complaining. I’m not. I am aware of, and grateful for, the amazing luck I’ve had in getting not one, but two books published. But the further I’ve gotten into this process—the revisions, the worry about how the book will sell, the constant feeling that you should be promoting your book(s) somehow, all the time—it’s become less and less about ego.

And I think this trip away from ego is even more true if you’re lucky enough to have the chance to publish a second book (or anything past that first one really). Because those books often feel like they are more about contractual deadlines, and advances paid out, and expectations (real or imagined) about it being as good, or better, than your first book. It feels like it’s about justifying all of these resources being marshaled for you—the editing and marketing and publicizing. I mean, why did you get this chance, when so many others have tried just as hard, or harder, or longer, and failed?

Thoughts like these don’t feed a writer’s ego, but they certainly can destroy it, along with the will, or sometimes the ability, to write. Because, if I’m being perfectly honest, when you’re in the middle of that vortex, you sometimes forget why you even started writing in the first place. Wasn’t this fun once? Didn’t the words fly off the page, the ideas tumbling out faster than my fingers could keep up with them?

So why? Why do I continue to write? I, among the happy few, published writers?

I don’t have all the answers, but I can say this: I write because I see and hear people that aren’t there unless I write them down. Because the fun is there, you just have to look for it sometimes.

Because I must.

SPIN is available for Pre-order in print and ebook edition.

[Have you ever wondered why authors write? It's not the easiest, stress-free, or stable and secure career choice yet it remains a dream/goal shared by so many. Throughout the next weeks, months, and onward, The Divining Wand will have authors explain their personal reasons.

Introducing this series is Kim Arbor, the pen name of an award winning, New York published novelist who has both an MFA in Creative Writing and a serious addiction to gummy bears. Kim is the author of the new women’s fiction novel, His Wife and Daughters, about a congressman’s political sex scandal of twenty years ago and the effect it still has on his wife and two daughters today. His Wife and Daughters is available as an e-book on both Amazon and Barnes and Noble.]

When I get asked the question, “Why do you write?” my first response is usually to say that I can’t not write. I’ve used the written word to express myself in some way or another since I learned to put pen to paper and fingers to keyboard. Letters, journals, songwriting, web content, tech writing, short fiction, novels, nonfiction—I’ve done it all and can’t get enough of it.

But although it’s some kind of addiction for sure and a never-ending drive to communicate (I am, after all, a Gemini—the great communicator of the Zodiac) if I continue to think about it, I suppose I write because I’m embarking on a constant journey to try to solve, understand and attempt to explain the puzzles and complexities of human behavior. Well, what else would you expect from a college psychology major?

Last fall a study conducted by psychological researchers at the University of Buffalo concluded that readers don’t read fiction for escape or fantasy, but to connect with others. The researchers asserted that reading novels provides “the opportunity for social connection and the blissful calm that comes from being a part of something larger than oneself for a precious, fleeting moment.”

The mention of social interaction brings us to the e-word: empathy. And why shouldn’t this fulfillment of a need for a social connection also be the impetus of the fiction writer? I know it is with me.

It can be said that empathy is one of the great powers of fiction. I find it fulfilling and challenging to try and identify with a character, enter her consciousness, and explore her motivations. That’s one of the things that turns me on about writing long fiction and having the time and space to build characters that live and breathe. In attempting to make sense out of the world and the people in it through my characters, I need to fall in love with them and understand them as deeply as I possibly can.

When I create a character like Trina Brath in my new novel, His Wife and Daughters, I’m not drawing from my own life. I’ve always been puzzled and, frankly baffled, by wives of politicians who stand by their men after being humiliated by their husbands’ sex scandals. But instead of taking an exterior view of these women, throwing my hands up and stating “they’re crazy,” and feeling how there’s now way I’d ever do that, I go deeper. I look into how I’ve perhaps misunderstood these women; I try to get into their skin. I find an empathy, even a love, for my characters, which I hope will make them complex and empathetic to my readers even if they’re not necessarily the type of person we’d want to emulate.

And being empathizers in the fictional world hopefully makes us better people in the real world. Understanding others is important to everyone—readers and writers alike. And that’s a big reason why I write.