Why Do You Write?
robparnell
When you first
decide you’d like to write, I believe a slight shift takes place in your brain.
You are no longer a mere participant in life - you are now a recorder of it.
And that makes you
different, special if you like.
Some writers are
drawn to writing for its own sake – and get sucked into the sheer joy of being
creative, of making something out of nothing, order out of chaos.
Others have been
inspired to write by events that have happened to them – usually unpleasant
ones.
Many great writers,
from Shakespeare to Stephen King have been scarred in some way – whether by
life or by themselves. Stephen King admits to alcoholism in his book “On
Writing”. Shakespeare, it is said, was perhaps a closet homosexual. There are countless
other examples.
Feeling like an
outsider is definitely common amongst writers, especially novices. I suspect
most of us write to assert some kind of power over something we don’t like or
don’t approve of, or something we think is wrong.
In a way, all
writers try to create a perfect world for themselves (even those who write
non-fiction) perhaps because they see nothing but imperfection and
inconsistency around them.
The urge to write
would therefore seem to be borne out of a sense of dissatisfaction: with life,
with its apparent lack of meaning and happy endings. Perhaps mostly, we are
dissatisfied with ourselves, and how we never seem to live up to our own
expectations.
But this is not all
bad.
Because I believe
that out of this dissatisfaction can come objectivity, and from that can come some degree of enlightenment – and great art.
Becoming a writer is
a statement you make to the world.
You are no longer
passive, taking what life throws at you. In a sense, you become a controller of
your reality, and by implication, your destiny.
My mother once told
me she thought writing a novel was a triumph of tenacity over intelligence. Who
would want to do it? And why, she wanted to know. Only a writer really
knows.
The irony, of
course, is that my mother reads avidly – and all sorts of fiction. Romances,
thrillers, crime novels, whatever she can lay her hands on. When I ask her why,
she says… to escape.
Exactly, I say to
her, that’s also why writers write.
To
escape...and perhaps create a better world.
Órobparnell 2003