Why Bother Writing?

Imagine you are standing in front of a long, high wall built from giant moss-covered stone. Imagine that you want, more than anything, to get over that wall. The wall is festooned with ladders, allowing you to believe that getting to one of the ladders and climbing up and over the wall will be a simple thing. But then you look around you and realise that there are other people who also want, also need to get over the wall.

Not just a few people, not just hundreds or thousands of people, but millions. Millions of people want to get over the same wall you do. That’s kind of what it’s like writing genre fiction in a market saturated by wonderful writers from traditional publishers and independent publishers and from writers who self-publish. From writers in the romance genre, the police procedural genre, the psychological fiction genre, the family drama genre and so many more.

I have been writing genre fiction for many years now and have just published my eighth novel with my wonderful new publishers, Bookouture. And I have to admit that sometimes, on days when the words won’t come and sales figures are average and there appears to be no reward, I wonder why I bother.

Why bother putting myself through this process over and over again just to compete with millions of other people?

I, like most writers, constantly question myself, my work and the sacrifices my family has made in order for me to be allowed the privilege of being an author. This can be soul destroying work. Criticism feels very personal and the same handful of authors you have always heard about, seem to be the only ones you ever hear about.

Fortunately, for me, I have come to understand the reasons I keep running for that ladder. The reasons I keep finding the words and keep telling the story, despite the millions of other people doing exactly the same thing. 

Firstly, I write for the same reason I read: To quiet an unquiet mind, to help deal with the churning anxiety that comes from living in a world where most of us feel we have very little control. I worry about everything. I worry about strangers on street corners and those stalking through cyberspace. I worry about climate change and an unkind world. I worry about disease and the abuse of innocents and…it goes on.

But when the worry becomes too intense, too difficult to handle I will sometimes retreat into a novel, into someone else’s life, into a story where I can rest assured that someone, at least, is in control. In the same way, I retreat into the stories that I create where I control the narrative, where I know what’s going to happen and where I believe I can solve every problem. Writing is my Zen space. 

And then there is the second reason I keep going and that is: the readers. 

Two years ago, after I left my publisher and agent and as I waited for agents to respond to my new idea for a novel, I found myself wondering if I could not be serving the world better in a different kind of job. I am a teacher by training and although it wasn’t a profession I enjoyed and in which there were many better than me; I did manage to connect with some of my students over the years, to offer support and encouragement where it was needed. I could have chosen to return to that work, to stop fighting to achieve something that sometimes felt impossible but right when I had almost made my mind up-a card from a reader arrived in the mail.

She told me that she was in the hospital, suffering and in pain but that there were moments when she was reading one of my novels that she was so captured by the story that she forgot about the pain, if only briefly. And I thought, ‘surely that’s worth something? Surely if I am doing for some people what books have always done for me then my work is worth fighting for?’

I went back to reviews for my old novels and messages on Facebook like the message from a man who read ‘Three Hours Late’ and confessed that the abusive husband in the novel had made him confront parts of himself he didn’t like. I reread a message from a woman who had read ‘Blame’ and told me I had captured the experience of a mother living with a special need’s child perfectly. I looked at a review of My Daughter’s Secret from a mother who had lost a son to suicide and who felt that the book was written about her. 

There have been many others along the way, reviews that question if I’m a social worker or a psychologist, reviews that say my novels made them cry. Reviews that let me know, above everything, my novels have the ability to allow someone some small respite from their daily life, from their own struggles as they concentrate on the family I have created.

I write because, somehow, despite the enormous number of writers out there, I have still managed to connect with people from all over the world. And I write and will continue to write because sometimes there is a review like the one for my latest novel, ‘The Boy in the Photo’, that simply says, ‘Holy big fat ugly cry! This book is amazing!’ And most days, that’s more than enough. And I know that the millions of other writers, running for those ladders, feel the same way.

—

Nicole Trope went to university to study Law but realised the error of her ways when she did very badly on her first law essay because-as her professor pointed out- ‘It’s not meant to be a story.’ She studied teaching instead and used her holidays to work on her writing career and complete a Masters’ degree in Children’s Literature. Her first novel was The Boy under the Table and was followed by five others. In 2018 she joined Bookouture, publishing My Daughter’s Secret in March 2019 and The Boy in the Photo in June 2019. She lives in Sydney with her husband and three children

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The Boy in the Photo

She becomes aware of the silence at the other end of the line. A prickling sensation crawls up her arms. Her heart speeds up. ‘Found who?’ she asks, slowly, carefully, deliberately.
‘They found Daniel.’

Six years ago

Megan waits at the school gates for her six-year-old son, Daniel. As the playground empties, panic bubbles inside her. Daniel is nowhere to be found. Her darling son is missing.

Six years later

After years of sleepless nights and endless days of missing her son, Megan finally gets the call she has been dreaming about. Daniel has walked into a police station in a remote town just a few miles away.

Megan is overjoyed – her son is finally coming home. She has kept Daniel’s room, with his Cookie Monster poster on the wall and a stack of Lego under the bed, in perfect shape to welcome him back. But when he returns, there is something different about Daniel…

Megan tries to talk to her little boy – but he barely answers her questions. Longing to help him heal, Megan tries everything – his favourite chocolate milkshake, a reunion with his best friend, a present for every birthday missed – but still, Daniel is distant.

And as they struggle to connect, Megan begins to suspect that there is more to the story. Soon, she fears that her son is hiding a secret. A secret that could destroy her family…

A heartbreaking, emotional and poignant drama about a family in turmoil. 

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Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips