Why Do We Write?
Gwendolyn Brooks said, “I am a writer perhaps because I am not a talker.”
I’m not exactly sure what that meant for her, but her words resonate. I am not a talker either. For me it means I don’t talk just to talk. I know lots of people who do, who love saying words, lots of them, out loud, who fill all the silences. The sound of their talking makes them happy.
I am definitely not that person and wouldn’t want to be. What I would want to be is the person who always has something worthwhile to say at the right time and who says it in an articulate and eloquent way.
Instead, I’m the person who thinks of the perfect response 30 seconds too late, after the conversation has moved on.
I’m much better on the page. When I write I create characters who are glib, who are rarely at a loss for words, who always have the perfect comeback at the perfect time; the clever joke, the consoling speech, the words of comfort.
I envy them. I live vicariously through them.
Writing has always been my anchor. I began reading at four. I loved books and started thinking I could do that. I wrote my first short story in 3rd grade. I wrote in a diary when I was young and have journaled for most of my life. I have many year’s worth of journals that I browse through occasionally. When I was 13 or 14 I wrote letters to a pen pal that I got from the section in the back of Teen Magazine, kind of a classified section for pen pals. Her name was Diane Piva and she lived in Jacksonville, FL and I think we must have written for two or three years. We became great friends, through writing. It was such a fun thing.
I am a writer because:
Writing is cathartic. It’s how I figure things out, how I explain myself and my thoughts.
When you write you can plan your words and organize your thoughts. And you can edit until you’re saying exactly what you mean to say.
There’s no backspace key or replay button for words that have already come out of your mouth. Sometimes things come out of my mouth that I wish I could put back.
Writing is how you express yourself, and it comes with a safety net.
In my fiction I write to express my views through stories, and explore themes of forgiveness or redemption or understanding, etc., in the hopes that someone will see themselves or others in these stories.
Why do you write?
I love to write and create fictional worlds. I could never be a politician as I suffer too much from hoof in mouth disease, saying the exact wrong thing. I enjoy having the time to think through the perfect, thoughtful response representing my best self rather than the knee-jerk thoughtless response and trying to back peddle. Even though I write military technothrillers, I want my readers to care about my characters. Cardboard characters turn me off and are boring even in the middle of explosions and high-speed chases. Making someone feel something with my words is the real goal. I read somewhere that if our own writing doesn't bring tears to our eyes, it won't in our readers either. When my writing makes me choke up with emotions, then I think I'm in the right place. Time will tell.
Samantha, thanks for sharing your love of writing and making the rest of us writers feel like we can join you.
For me it’s simple. Very much like Joan Didion. I write to know and understand what I’m thinking and feeling. It’s the only way I can fully understand.