Why do I write? It’s a question that I’ve asked myself every single day since I decided that being a writer was what I want to do with my life. Actually, I’ve probably been asking it since I first started writing anything. Why did I write in a journal when I was a teenager? Why did I once skip a community college Ethics class because I was on a writing streak in the library? Why did I once spend an entire summer writing a really, really terrible novella? And why did I participate in National Novel Writing Month? Why did I do any of this? I could’ve studied science or math and done something with that, but instead I chose to study writing. And after every draft of every essay, paper, short story, script, I always come back to that question: Why do I write?
As a friend and fellow writer recently told me, “writing is the only thing I’m sorta good at, and it’s f-----g difficult.” That pretty much sums up the struggle, and it is very real.
I was never great at anything in school. Math? Looking at numbers and I might as well be looking at Hebrew or Mandarin. Science? I mean, yeah that’s all incredibly interesting, but that relies so much on being precise that it’s intimidating. The only subjects that I was ever really decent at were English and History. I’m really good at remembering important dates and events. D-Day was June 6th 1944. Thank you very much, U.S. History. And Saving Private Ryan. When it came to English, I had no trouble analyzing literature and then writing a five-page essay on it. Okay, to be fair, the vast majority of that essay was most likely bullshit, but it was amazing bullshit if I do say so myself. So naturally that lead to me to gravitate towards writing.
Why do I write? Because I have to. Because I have so many stories and ideas floating around in my head that they’re all taking up “valuable” space and if I don’t get them out I’ll probably go crazy.
Why do I write? Because I have this really pretentious notion that maybe, someday I’ll write something so profound, or maybe just mildly entertaining enough, that at least one person will read it and say, “Same.”
Why do I write? Because I can’t really verbally express how I feel. Whenever I try and talk, I stutter, I stammer, I mess up my words or I say the wrong words. I could never tell someone how I feel about them. I could never tell you that I’m having a great time. But if you put a computer in front of me or a pen and paper, then I could express myself in ways that I never could in person.
Why do I write? Let’s be honest. I write because hopefully one day I’ll write a really, really, really, awful Young Adult novel that will get turned into a movie franchise and I’ll make enough money to pay off my student debt. It can’t be that hard to write the next Hunger Games, right?
Writing isn’t easy, and anyone who says otherwise is full of shit. It’s something that’s hard and that I’ll probably struggle with. But like they say in The Godfather, “this is the life we chose.”
So why do I write? Why do I spend hours staring in front of a blank word document waiting for an idea? Why do I go through draft after draft of garbage waiting, hoping for something good to come to me?
Why do I write? Because I have a story to tell. It might not be a good one, but it’s my story. It’s unique and maybe, just maybe someone will read it and say, “Same.”
And also because I just really, really, really want that Hunger Games money. Young Adult Fiction is where it's at, people!
