Why Do You Write?

Why do you write? The question bounces around in your brain, ricocheting off memories, imaginings, ideas, aches, desires, anxieties, and dreams, evading answers. It’s a question asked by colleges considering whether to accept you into their creative writing program. A question asked by professors trying to get your creative juices flowing. By parents worrying about how you’re paying your bills. By yourself wondering what the hell you’re doing with your life. 

Why do you write? Usually, you answer questions by observing them like a lion stalking an antelope. Then you pounce and the question’s answer submits to your logic and knowledge. But this question is an antelope that keeps running, refusing to surrender to the starving lion that chases it. 

Why do you write? Perhaps you write because you’ve been doing it for as long as you can remember. You started scribbling little stories and poems when you were seven. Tales about a family of mice hunting for cheese and poems about cats and bats, only because they were the only words you knew that rhymed. You also liked journaling, harping on how your classmate Jenna made fun of your thick glasses and lamenting the fact that your crush Brian never liked you back. 

Why do you write? Perhaps you write because it’s the one thing you’re good at. Every time you shared your work in class, your classmates always said you were meant to be a writer. You have talent, a professor once said, put it to use. You failed that chemistry test on chemical bonding because you were thinking about the bond between Katniss and Peeta. Your art teacher gave you an F when you drew Platform Nine and Three Quarters instead of a picturesque verdant valley. The writing in this paper is so beautiful, your history teacher said to you, but I don’t see any analysis of the causes of the Civil War. 

Why do you write? Perhaps you write because you don’t want your writing to go to waste. You want your trials and tribulations to pay off. All those short stories you wrote, clogging up space on your hard drive. All those times your hand cramped from frantic brainstorming. All those hours you spent caring for your book, your baby. You want someone to read your work, to feel something, anything. The pain can’t all be for nothing. Right?

Why do you write? Perhaps you write to prove the skeptics wrong. All the naysayers who laughed in your face when you said you wanted to be a writer. The disappointed looks of your parents, the worried looks of your few friends, the annoyed looks of your landlords, all of them pleading with you to get a “real job” so you don’t have to live off Big Macs anymore. You want to walk past a bookstore with them and smile smugly when their eyes widen at your name emblazoned across a bestseller. 

Why do you write? Perhaps you write to express yourself. You’re tired of talking about the nice weather, or how well-cooked the steak is. But that’s all you can talk about to assure your audience you’re fine. People ask what it’s like being a writer. You tell them you’re learning so much about writing. But really, you’re learning how far a dollar can stretch. Everything that comes out of your mouth is censored. The only thing you don’t lie to is your computer, open to a new Microsoft Word document.

Why do you write? Perhaps you write to escape from the world. The real world has always been disappointing compared to Pern, Narnia, and Wonderland. Real people have always been disappointing compared to Sherlock Holmes, Elizabeth Bennet, and Odysseus. You hate going outside, where there are a thousand ways to die and the noise is as sharp as a knife. Each conversation drains you like how each transaction drains your bank account. When you write, you enter a world where the unpaid bills on your desk don’t exist. A world of your own making, uncorrupted by the darkness of reality. 

Why do you write? Perhaps you write so that one day, a toddler will read your book until the spine falls off. A child will dream of reaching the stars after reading your book, inspired. A teenager will clutch your book to their heart with all their might, finally understood. An adult will gently set your book on their shelf, smiling with gratitude. 

Why do you write? Perhaps you write because you just love it. You’ve always preferred learning about Middle Earth to learning about photosynthesis, creating characters to solving algebraic equations, reading in the library to laughing with peers. Finishing the first draft of your first crappy novel gave you more joy than getting an A+ on an English essay ever did. You live for the clicking of the keyboard, the blinking of the cursor as it runs along the screen. You live for the satisfaction of typing the last period of a short story. 

Why do you write? Perhaps you write because it is a means of catharsis. People can’t know you’re struggling, so you’ve become a kettle, your thoughts and emotions building inside you like steam. You have to let them out on the keyboard, expunging yourself of pain, shame, regret, and self-loathing until all that’s left of you is an empty glass that’s ready to be filled again. You have to scream your true self into the void, hoping that somebody, anybody, will scream back. There has to be someone out there, right?

Why do you write? But perhaps you write because it makes you whole in a way nothing else can. Writing is the cheese to your macaroni, the oxygen to your fire. Writing feels like the gentle caress of the sun after hours of rain. Like a cup of rich hot chocolate on a cold winter night. Like a cool breeze on a hot, humid day. Writing is your best friend, your lover, your child. Your everything. 

Why do you write? You've finally captured the antelope and found the answer. The glass that is your life is full, overflowing. So you pour yourself a cup of tea, flip open your laptop, and begin typing.