Why Be A Writer?
When you are (for whatever reason) taking a break from the deadlines, the editorial decisions, and everything else that goes with trying to get a book ‘out there’, it can feel a little disingenuous to answer the question, ‘what do you do?’ with ‘I’m a writer.’ However, recently, despite the lack of deadlines, I have had to learn to do just that.
For various reasons, including but entirely confined to, having a load of building work done on my property (those of you following me on Facebook or Instagram @nigeloakleywrites will have caught a glimpse of the chaos that has ensued since building work started), I have pulled out of working on two novels (one a middle grade, the other is the third part of my Podevin trilogy). Both were to be written and edited by the early part of 2027. Now the former will happen ‘whenever’ – hopefully next year, but that depends on so many things, like life, building work and so on. ‘Podevin and Elgiva’s Return’ has been postponed. I’d like to try to get that out by Christmas 2027. But does this stepping back stop me from being a writer?
I venture to suggest: no, it doesn’t. If Elijah had to take time out (1 Kings 19), if Moses had to offload some of his burdens (on his father-in-law’s advice Exodus 18), if Paul also had gaps in his ministry (some voluntary, some not: for example, his time in Tarsus from Acts 9:30 to Acts 11:25), and – finally – if Jesus himself took time away from his ministry to pray and to spend time with his Father; then if I have to spend time away from my main endeavours, if I find I cannot do everything, all at once, all the time, then I’m learning that doesn’t invalidate my calling. I find I still write things down: I come up with short pieces, poems – maybe some of them, with further work, with editing, will end up being published, but I suspect most won’t.
Taking time out is not the same as quitting: and even as I take the time away from the pace of getting my novels written and polished and published, I can feel God saying that’s okay. After all, we do ourselves no favours if we don’t rest and relax some times.
What you have just read is the post I put up on the Association of Christian Writers website. So, yes, I call myself a writer, but this leads me to a different question: ‘Why am I a writer?’ For this question, the answer has to be ‘because I can’t not be a writer.’
Even though there’s generative AI – which is indicated by things such as double-negatives and dashes, or so I’m told by algorithm-derived social media posts. Even though the only people making money are large publishers, and celebrity ‘authors’. Even though everything I publish takes ages, years even, before it can be put out there into the world (and even then, I worry that readers will only spot the mistakes) I have to write. I cannot even pass up the chance to come up with a poem using the word ‘snoozy’ (even though I was not the member of Resolute books tasked with coming up with a poem using this word, I couldn’t resist):
There was a young lad called Looney,
Who spent too much time getting boozy,
On leaving the pub,
He threw up his grub,
But still thought his girl should get swoony.
Okay, so it’s not high literature, not even a great poem, but it was fun to write – and one or two others in the group chat liked it enough to give it a laughing face emoji – and, why not? Since giving up the deadlines, I have written other poems, some of which may eventually see the light of day, others won’t.
Recently, I’ve also had to post on my social media about forgetting my short story deadline: I belong to a writing group and, every month, we write a short story of up to three thousand words, send them to each other, and meet the following week to discuss them. It is, I find, a good discipline, especially as we take it in turns to come up with the theme. The theme for this last month was ‘A Quiet Man’. Don’t tell the others, but my story – the one I came up with in a rush on a Sunday night – is more about a quiet boy, rather than a man, but I hope the rest of the gang will let me get away with it.
While I have no intention of leaving my writing group, and so will still be writing short stories each month – some of which will continue to be posted on my website – I have found, more unexpectantly, that I have also drafted ten thousand words of the third part of my Premyslid Chronicles trilogy, provisionally entitled ‘Podevin and Elgiva’s Return.’
The story about why I started writing the Premyslid Chronicles has been told and retold, but it boils down to a question my son put to me after singing ‘Good King Wenceslas’ at a Christmas concert; ‘who was the page?’ As my research went on, I found out the page was a young man called Podevin, not a little boy, whose duties included acting as bodyguard for Wenceslas. At some point, however, he must have been absent, or failed in his duty somehow, as Wenceslas was assassinated by his own brother, and Podevin found himself an outlaw in his own lands.
Throw in the knowledge that one of Alfred the Great’s granddaughters was sent all the way from England to marry into Wenceslas’s family, and I had the beginnings of a story which became ‘Warrior Princess, Errant Page,’ the sequel, set ten years later when the Warrior Princess’s sister dies unexpectantly and without explanation, followed (it’s called ‘Podevin and the Queen’s Death’ and, like the first book, is available on Amazon).
Have these books made my fortune? No – or not yet, anyway. Have they cost me to get them published? Yes, they have. Is it a pain having to submit my work to other writers and editors for them to critique? Yes, it can be; but if any writer wants their work to be as good as it can be before it’s published, this is part of the process. Besides, calm reflection after the process, usually reveals how right they were. So, in the end, for me, even the supposed downsides of writing are worth it when I can hold a book what I wrote in my hands.
So, all in all, yes, I am a writer, and I am a writer because I can’t not be a writer.