New Mission Statement

I want to write books that I want to read. That seems like a no-brainer, but it's not. There are lots of reasons why someone might write something, like money, or because it's how they feel at that moment.
Don't get me wrong, I would love to get paid for writing. But, I would rather write something that was good and worth reading and never receive a penny, than write for a reason other than telling a good tale and make millions of dollars.
This isn't a rant about people selling out. A lot of well known, well paid others write amazing books and a lot of unknown true-to-the-art authors write crap. It's not like I have this amazing gift I can use for good or evil, but I have some meager skill that I can do the right thing with.

That's my new mission statement - writing good books for the sake of good reading.

It's not like before this moment I've been the guy trying to figure out what to write based solely on what is selling. If that were the case, I would probably have made some money by now. (Not because my writing would be better, but because for me to have done that I would have needed to be a lot more motivated about finishing the process.)

I think this new mission statement more applies to my poetry than my fiction. I always write from the heart, and let's face it, most of it is crap. It's one thing to re-read your own work and think, "OK, this needs some editing...", while it's a completely different thing look at it again and be embarassed that I thought it was worth writing in the first place.

I guess this means I just need to write more. :) I also need to learn better, more efficient editing methods.

One thing I'm not going to change is the way I blog. I view blogging as both a way to get in a free-write and to take a snapshot of my thoughts at a particular moment in time. I'm quite happy with the result, even if the level of quality is a bit sporadic at times.