We happy few, we band of buggered

What is it with writers, anyway? I mean, the rewards are obvious for Dan Brown, James Patterson, and Stephen King: untold riches, private islands, a pair of goons to walk before them on the sidewalk and shove people out of the way because a Writer is coming through.

What about the rest of us, though? Particularly the chronically unpublished? What is it that keeps us returning to this thankless and time-consuming task?

Some people are motivated by the Brown/Patterson/King carrot. That's straightforward enough. These are the folks who are obsessed with markets and trends and are always but always first in line to Meet The Agent/Editor/Gatekeeper at conferences. These are the folks who are focused on getting published, as opposed to writing. Which--hey!--might work out just fine for them. You can't tell me that James Patterson, Inc. isn't focused on publishing rather than writing. The man's an industry.

But what about those of us who don't want to be industries? Why do we keep at it?

Beats the piss out of me, it does, mainly because I can't speak for you or any other writer. But I can speak for me (of course), and maybe that will seem familiar enough to be useful.

Me, I just want to see if I can do it. Finish the draft, revise it, finalize it, submit it for representation...you know, do the work and jump through all the hoops that are between me and my name on a book that doesn't say Lulu on the spine. In fact, I'm even willing to crank out a few properly edited self-published works, just to build up a readership in support of an eventual non-self-published book.

I've got no illusions. It's blood-on-the-walls brutal out there, people. The chances of me supporting myself solely by my writing endeavors are small indeed. In fact, it's likely that I'm spending more on private editorial services right now than the book I'm working on will ever make in sales (I regard it as a highly effective and personalized writing workshop). So, for me, it just can't be about getting published, or sales figures. It's got to be about the thing itself: the book. The story.

Now, there's a certain craftiness to my motivation. There's the notion that by focusing on story, and creating something that's worth my hypothetical readers' time, success will follow. So in one sense, it's sort of a sneaky way of taking my best shot at success--financial and otherwise--by not focusing on it.

That said, I can honestly say that I'm not fooling myself into thinking that I don't care about those things. That might change some day, but right now I really and truly don't. I'm hip-deep in the creative swamp, dredging up ideas that have been percolating through the mud for years. I'm finally writing scenes that have been bouncing around my skull for a decade. I'm bring a world into being! It's an awesome process, all by itself. I have to admit that it took awhile, but the process has finally become its own reward.

Now, there will come a point when I've got to focus on selling the thing. But that's not the motivation for making the thing. It's a crucial difference--at least, it is to me--and when the time comes to get out of the swamp and cross the road and clamber down into the muddy ditch of sales and marketing, I'll do that. Right now, that's a distraction, and I've got enough of those in my life.

So, that's my spiel about this particular thing. What keeps you going, writer-type people? Do tell.