What keeps me going? Why write when there are so many other things I could be doing with my one and only life? Why not become a savior, a saint, a martyr? Why not make a ton of money and surround myself with luxury? Why not raise a litter of children and disseminate my DNA far and wide? Why not watch TV and drink beer all day? Why not stop breathing and maybe find out that I’m wrong about what happens next? … because every new book is the book that will float us above and away from (choose three) irrelevance, poverty, mediocrity, madness, obscurity, obloquy, ourselves.
Pete Hautman on the Book that Will Save Us (Writing for the Long Haul series)
Whoa, I needed to see this today. See, sometimes I feel like as a YA writer I’m supposed to talk about books in the context of readers needing them. I’m supposed to write Because [Something] Is Important. There’s a whole “books save lives” thing thing out there. Which may be true. But for me, when it comes to writing, I think about the Flannery O’Connor quote I put in the front of How to Save a Life – “The life you save may be your own." Truth is, writing is what I happen to need to do with my life, and the alternatives are terrifying.
(Also I learned a new word from Hautman in this piece!)
Question of Smoke 