Why I Write

Becca, of Becca's Byline, has kicked-off her summer series on writing with a question and an invitation to post our answers on our own blogs, linking back to her "Write on Wednesday" feature.

Her question this week is "Why in the world do you come to the page?"


I've never answered that question in any way that I haven't found someone else had already done more eloquently already. It seems that it is the same impulse in most of us that impels us to grab a pen or to start pounding a keyboard, and we express it in various phrases, but it boils down to this for me: If I don't, my brain will explode. Or implode. There will be consequences. That's all I know.


I can go for many weeks at a time without writing anything of much consequence. But that doesn't mean I'm not writing. I jot notes. I write lists. I've even been found transcribing passages from favourite books, just for the joy of writing those words, those words, over and over again.


What I want to write is sometimes a search for an answer to a question. I may be journalling a dialogue between parts of myself - asking and answering a series of questions, teasing out what it means to say any one thing, what are the implications, and how, how, how can I marry up the inconsistencies and confusions between my various ways of looking at things?


And then I may not be writing at all about my own internal process, my psychological battles, but of something or someone out there... a person entirely imaginary in their origin, a place I'm concocting as I write, a situation entirely divorced from the reality of my life. I may be writing a poem that simply attempts to be a word-sketch of some scene I've witnessed that has struck me as interesting, noteworthy, poignant, amusing, or so ordinary that we would all recognise it as part of our lives, if I can only find the way to convey it as I've seen it. And that's the impulse - to try to convey a reality - my reality - in a way that someone else can understand it. I never gained much facility with paintbrush or pencil in drawing what I see, but when I write, I leave a picture that will remind me later what it was I wanted to note, what I was moved by, what touched me in some way.

Because I love to read, I have to write. Because others' words move me, I have to write. Because I cannot always be talking, I have to write. Because there are so many words, because there are so many words, so many words....

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If you choose to share your thoughts on the matter, do let me know, and especially, let Becca know please!


My previous Sunday Scribbling post about Writing is HERE.