EDITORIAL: Why do you write?

From Contemporary Fiction: A Very Short Introduction by Robert Eaglestone:

[This Chapter,]‘Saying everything’, argues that contemporary fiction matters because it is how we work out who we are now, today. The novel is the best way of doing this. Of all the arts, the novel is the most thoughtful, the closest, and the most personal. It can be about anything, and can take any form or forms it chooses. The novel, like the human species, is now global and the form is still coming to terms with this deep and recent change.

I had cause to read the first chapter of this terrific series today and the above passage started my thinking: Why to I write novels?

I'm not sure I'm consciously working out who I am, and it sure ain't for the glamour (I say as I write in my fingerless gloves).  I write to entertain; mostly myself, but also the audience, the readers. I want someone to have the experience I have had when reading - staying up past 1am to finish it, falling slowing in love with the characters, and mourning them when the book is over.

So perhaps there are two schools of writers: the ones who work out 'who we are' and the people who write for the kicks. I call them the Philosophers and the Entertainers. Which are you?

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image: http://www.sxc.hu/profile/christgr Chris Greene