Why I Write

I seem to be writing at a speed of about one notebook page every half hour, front and back. That's probably about one typed page. Today I caught myself adding up all the pages I haven't written. "And then I'll be writing 8-10 pages a week, which means I can have a first draft done in about 10 months, which means I can start looking for an agent in 14 months, which means I'll be rich and famous in less than four years!!!"

Oh, wait... I'm still on page four.

It's so easy to get ahead like that. In this day, especially, when it seems like anybody who's been addicted to something or hit by another person can write a best selling memoir. No, that's harsh. I know as well as anyone that good writers make their writing seem effortless, which is how hacks like me end up sitting around and believing anyone can write.

Refusing to think about publication, money, and recognition is a constant practice for me. I firmly believe that once an artist puts those things in the forefront they've ceased to make good art. So if I don't write for those things, why do I write? This is a question I try to avoid thinking about, because it plagues me and fills me with doubt. Nonetheless, it's an important one to answer.

Why do I write?

I write because living life once is not enough, and I need to reexperience life through writing to more fully understand it.
I write because I can't help but feel we are missing something, that there is a deeper meaning to what happens than the event itself, and only by examination and careful scrutiny can we come to see beneath the surface to what is holding us up.
I write because I become depressed when I stop, and I start to feel like a worthless lump of uselessness.
I write because it makes me happy.
I write because great writers inspire me to emulate them.
I write because I don't want to die without having contributed something lasting and meaningful.

Those are the (positive) answers I've come up with so far. It's so tempting to give up this pursuit. I've tried many times, thinking how much easier my life would be if I went to work and then came home to an evening of just hanging out, cooking, watching movies... Instead I have this constant awareness that I need to write. I don't know where it comes from, but I've had it since I was eleven or twelve years old! Maybe I'm channeling some dead person who never got their chance to break out...

Still enjoying Nick Hornby's book. I'm a slow reader, as I intersperse my fiction with magazine articles, newspapers, blogs, etc. I'm reading an article in the New Yorker about Paulo Coelho, the Brazilian author. I've never read anything of his, but now am inspired to read The Alchemist. Talk about the glamorous writer's life! He has hundreds of fans waiting for him wherever he goes, and he goes everywhere. Yea.

(photo of ernest hemingway)