The Virtue Of Selfishness

Why I Write What I Write

To give a fuck or not give a fuck is a decision an artist must make every time they sit down to create. Whether to heed the whims and caprices of the consumer and follow the latest trend or to imitate themselves, endlessly reproducing new versions of their most popular work, or to take a chance and do something different, something unique. To follow their own creative impulses and create true art that defies expectations and rebels against trends and fads and the ever changing demands of the market.

It can be a struggle because even starving artists must eventually eat. As an old friend once said: "Sometimes artists sellout because they have no one else to sell to."

Throughout my career I have pursued my own personal creative and artistic ambitions even when it conflicted with consumer trends or the expectations and desires of readers. I have selfishly pursued my own artistic goals which have often been in conflict with my financial ones. 400 Days of Oppression, Yaccub’s Curse, Skinzz, Pure Hate, and even Rabbit Hunt would not exist had I been less concerned with expressing myself and more concerned with making a buck.

I am sure I would be far more successful had I considered my readers a little more when deciding what to write. If I had been a little less selfish. If all of my main characters looked like Joseph Miles rather than Kenyatta or Malik or Mack, if I reduced the amount of sociopolitical commentary and religious criticism, if I spoke out a little less about the issues that are most important to me, and focused more upon gross humor or had I gone the other way and wrote about vampires, zombies, demon possessions, and haunted houses, I am certain I would be more successful. But, I never could.

Throughout my writing career I have bucked every trend and just written what I wanted to write and said what I wanted to say. I took the view that, rather than adapt to the market and conform to my environment, I would make the market conform to me. Youthful arrogance and hubris to be sure, but even after more than half a century upon this earth, and a quarter century in the business, I can't say I would have changed anything. Not to be too deterministic, but I don’t think it was ever really an option to go about my writing creatively or professionally anyway other than I have.

Certainly my career trajectory would have been far different had my first novel been about sexy vampires back when I first entered the game at the start of the millennium when paranormal romance was hot or had my second or third novels been about fast zombies, but I just couldn't do it, and I often wonder if my artistic integrity was a professional and business error. I don’t believe I really had a choice in the matter though.

Who I am dictated those decisions. The person who could have followed the paranormal romance trend or the zombie apocalypse trend or even the "who can write the most mindlessly gross novel" trend would just not be me. It's like saying I would have made a helluva basketball player if only I loved playing basketball or a great football player if only I had been as passionate about Sunday Night Football as I was about the next Clive Barker novel or Halloween movie. Well, I wasn’t, so it's a moot point.

I write what I write and if it happens to hit the right trend at the right time then so be it. I won't sell out until I don't have a single reader left to sell to. I'm too damn selfish.