What Makes a Writer Truly Great?
Great writers will write no matter what. Security or suffering. Fame or obscurity. Inspiration or blank slate.
They have a will to write.
Hunter S. Thompson is a great example. In 1959 he wrote (before he was famous):
As things stand now, I am going to be a writer. I’m not sure that I’m going to be a good one or even a self-supporting one, but until the dark thumb of fate presses me to the dust and says, ‘you are nothing,’ I will be a writer.
That’s the professional mindset.
Writers are no different from plumbers, nurses and accountants. We have a job to do, the attitude being if I walk to Creativity’s door and find it locked — I kick down the door.
And it includes a drive for mastery … the great writer wants to get better.
They want to be competent because he or she feels that is the proper response to the gift they have been given. They don’t want to fail. And they don’t want to fall into obscurity.
So they write no matter what.
The next question is this: is this drive something that you can manufacture? I’ll answer question in the next post.
