Why do you write?
A writer friend posed an interesting question on her blog yesterday.
Why do you write?
Simple I thought, and began to type up my reply.
Then I realised it wasn’t that simple, there was no definitive answer, nothing I could write that would express my emotions about writing in one easy to digest chunk. Why the hell do I write? It’s hard to express exactly why I want to write. I know, it’s ironic, a writer writing about writing…lost for words. I thought about it for a little longer and this was the closest to an answer that I could come up with:
I write because it stops the crazy…because if I stop for too long I get all itchy and antsy like a lion in a zoo – ok, that’s a modest comparison…more like a budgie in one of those small cardboard boxes on the way back from the pet shop. Something just feels off if I don’t have a story on the go, if I don’t stop to write something down…anything…I just want to get words out of my head, reduce the pressure of half-formed sentences and partial paragraphs pushing against my brain. It feels as if the words will keep coming no matter what I do, so if I don’t write them down something is going to go *KABLOOIE*.
I can’t remember a time when I didn’t write, I can remember plenty of times when my writing breaks extended into ridiculously long periods but it’s always been there. A part of me, a defining characteristic of my personality, it’s not something I can turn off. I can’t help but overhear conversations and scribble down details, I can’t help but pause mid-sentence when a flash of inspiration hits (no matter how crazy it makes me look), I can’t help but form incomplete and terrible ideas each and every day and justify to myself that they will be the next bestseller…so I better write down some notes quickly!
I write because there’s a small part of me that knows I can get a book on the shelves of a major bookstore no matter how long it takes, no matter how many rejections, no matter how many drafts and tears and heartbreak…I write because I have to.
But the question is…why do you write?
I love reading people’s answers to this because it is something we are all passionate about and the answers that stem from it are not only interesting but say a lot for the effect writing can have on a person.
Personally I write because, like many writers, it feels like an integral part of my identity.
There may be no simple definitive answer for everyone, but it’s an easy question for me – I write because I’m a writer. (If I didn’t write I’d be a procrastinator or a sit-staring-at-a-blank-screen-er)
I am allowed to be 7% procrastinator if I promise to try and reduce that figure? Being 100% writer sounds scary…