Semper Gus: So Writers Write

So Writers Write

"Lao-Tze pointed out that nothing worth saying can be said with words. Words are crude and clumsy things, objects of ink, ultimately imprecise. And writing is as much fun as giving birth to a Howard Johnson's. Writers learn to live with that fact the way a soldier learns to live with fear or the way a doctor learns to live with death. When the battle is lost, the soldier attacks. When the case is hopeless, the doctor operates. So writers write. And whereas soldiers and doctors are allowed to bury their mistakes a writer is expected to publish his.
"Being a writer was not my first choice for a profession. I would much prefer to be an archaeologist, a sculptor, or a country-western singer. But then I had all these ideas for books which came to me in a vision. Since then, I have been convinced that there is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I say. Yet my work remains a personal statement -- I speak for no groups or social factions. I have no goals beyond the completion of my next story. The praise I seek from my readers is that they finish my books. After being alternately damned and praised for equally invalid reasons, I am content to trade fame for accuracy of interpretation. Fame, for a writer, is like being a dancing bear with a little hat on your head." " --from Gus's profile in Contemporary Authors