Why we write
By Heather O., Segullah Editorial Board Member
Last time I was here, I told you about my father-in-law and his obsession with books. Now I’ll tell you about my husband, and his obsession with writing.
In some ways, it’s the reason we are together. We are both always writing. We got to know each other through letters. We met in high school, but then parted for separate sides of the country. This was in an age where email was for computer geeks, and the internet was really for computer geeks. So, we wrote.
He tells me I was the only one who faithfully wrote him his entire mission, with the exception of his father. When we finally decided that we should get married, 3 years or so after he got home, the digital age was in full swing, and it had been years since we had sent each other anything handwritten. Once, I wrote him a goofy love letter instead of taking notes in class. When he got it, after not seeing my handwriting for so long, he said, “Wow. I REALLY know your handwriting. This is kind of freaky.”
I’ve now been married to this man for 10 years, and I’ve learned more about what makes him tick, and why he does what he does. And I’ve figured out more about why he writes.
We both keep journals, handwritten ones even, although I know that sort of makes us dinosaurs. But there is something quite satisfying about writing in a paper journal, and having a year or so of your life chronicled in one spot. But I’ll admit that to me, writing is mostly a creative exercise. Yes, I dump as much garbage as the next person into my journal, entries driven by intense emotions that, put together, make it look like my life is just full of drama (which it’s not. Seriously, I’m the most boring person I know). But I also try new things in my journal, short stories, essays, even a few starts to a novel. Creative stuff. (Such as it is.)
My husband doesn’t do that. He writes to solve intellectual conundrums, to bounce ideas off of others, to approach thing from an different angle. He writes academic articles that prove a point, or solve a puzzle, or illustrates something nobody has ever thought of before. He wants to write something that will impact future generations.
Me? I just hope that somebody will laugh at my blog.
In this new world where anybody with an internet connection and blogspot address can be a writer, sometimes it makes me wonder why so many people are writing now. Have there always been this much interest in writing, and it’s just never been this easy? Or is blogging something that lends itself uniquely to mass interest, as you can put yourself in the spotlight, regardless of your message? (One commentor accused a friend of mine, an avid blogger, of being self-centered on her blog. Well, duh.)
This blog is aimed at writers, at Mormon writers in particular. So I ask you, why do you write what you do? Is it creative, is it cathartic, or is it, as Madeleine L’Engel talks about, something that you just can’t NOT do? She knew that she was a writer because even as she got rejected as writer, she started writing a novel about rejection in her head. It was something she could never get away from. Writing.
Using this definition, my husband is a writer. He will write his thoughts for an essay on the back of the program on Sunday if he doesn’t have any other paper handy, and he constantly carries a notebook full of writing. Not a journal–a notebook. They have to be separate, you know.
Because writing is serious business. Isn’t it?
Why do you do it?
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February 9th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
[...] And if so, why do you do what you do? Come tell me, over at The Red Brick Store. [...]
February 9th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
I write to connect with friends and family.
I write to chronicle the events of my family.
I write to explore new ideas and to solidify old ones.
I write to explain my feelings to myself.
I write so I can be a better writer.
I write to entertain others.
I really don’t think this helps you much. I do know that the more I write, the more I want to write.
February 9th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Add to Dave’s list:
To stay sane
It’s a relatively cheap hobby
If it turns out to be crap, I can throw it away (or delete it) before anyone else sees it.
Sometimes I can’t find the story I want to read, so I write it.
My doodles in school were half pictures and half words – just words that came into my head – just because I liked looking at them
February 9th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Heather–You’ve certainly succeeded. I sure laugh when I read your blog.
I write because it helps me understand things better. I don’t really know what I think until I work it out by writing it.
February 9th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
I write because it feels good. Sometimes that feeling comes from putting pen or pencil to paper, sometimes it comes from the lightening speed of the keys going “clickity-click”. I also write because I think I’m funny and I like to go back and make myself laugh. My best reason is because I am crazy and I know others are crazy but some of us (not me, obviously) are not bold enough to say things out loud so I say it for them. I think!
February 9th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
As per the quote from Madeleine L’Engle, I just can’t _not_ write. I start to go crazy when I don’t find the time to write. While I used to keep a journal, and I do enjoy blogging, those aren’t the kind of writing I _have_ to do. I _have_ to write novels, or go crazy with not writing them. Besides just the need to write, I write because I have these great characters in my head, and they deserve to have their stories told. Plus, I hope others will get to know these characters and like them as much as I do.
February 9th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
I write because, to not would feel stifling. I have a blog, a paper journal, and a writing notebook, just for ideas and thoughts. I’ve woken up in the middle of the night and written things down. Amazingly enough, they’re coherent. If I didn’t write, I think that words would ooze out my pores, regardless if I wanted them to or not.
Writing helps me to define my ideas, thoughts and feelings. It helps me to write better the next time. It fulfills me, and maybe, someday, my purpose.
Disclaimer: This in no way intones that I do it well, or that it will be of any interest to anyone but myself. Sigh, Ci la vie.
February 9th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
For me, it depends on the writing I’m doing. My blog writing is primarily social: I do it because I like the back-and-forth, the laughing and making other people laugh, the exchange of ideas, the making of friends. I’ve always been the type who likes to talk, and internet writing fills that need very well. Almost TOO well.
I write fiction and (occasionally) personal essays and poetry because I want to create something. My “audience” for this kind of work is always much more nebulous, and I realize that whatever it is I’m writing that day might not be read by another living soul. But I do it because it fills my human need to make something that didn’t exist before I created it.
The strange thing is that I’ve never been much of a journal writer. I’ve always felt kind of sheepish about that–writers are supposed to keep journals, aren’t they?? Maybe it’s because there’s no audience at all for a personal journal, or maybe I’m just too afraid of my own raw psyche?
February 9th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Conflicts and struggles leave my head through my fingers as I write, and only then can I dissect them more objectively. I can inspect my thoughts and issues, and either come up with solutions or come to peace with the struggle.
February 9th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Angela, you don’t keep a journal? You are so totally fired.
February 9th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
I say that I don’t think, I write. Getting it down helps me sort and dump and process and record and learn and repent and find myself and find God.
February 9th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
When I think of myself writing, I always think of when I am writing in my journal, even though I definitely spend a lot of time at my computer. For me, I think a big reason of why I write in a paper journal is for the tactile, sensory experience of holding the book open, smelling the ink and the paper (as it wets from the ink), feeling the tooth of the paper against my hand and fingers. And then seeing the ink spelling out my thoughts and feeling. It is almost a meditation.
February 9th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
I’d always loved to read. I didn’t know I loved to write. Until recently.
I knew I was moderately good at it: history theses written at 5 am that my profs wanted to publish, lame essays on lame books praised by high school English teachers.
But it wasn’t until I started to write for no purpose, without any deadlines, that I discovered that I loved it.
Real, true love.
Don’t tell my husband. He might be jealous, if he knew how I feel. (About the writing).
February 9th, 2009 at 7:24 pm
I know! I should be fired. Part of it is I really don’t like to write by hand. Takes FOREVER. Which also should automatically exclude me from the writer club because all writers are supposed to love to write by hand. That, and work in the garden. I don’t do that either. I’m waiting for my walking papers . . .
February 9th, 2009 at 8:31 pm
I started a blog to kill my journal. I have been keeping a journal or diary off and on since I was in 6th grade. I write when I’m upset to work through issues. Do you know how depressing it is to look at decades of misery and whining? So I thought–a blog might force me into doing a bit more work to gussy up my writing for a public audience. The blog has mostly succeeded in killng off the journal. But I’m not a good blogger.
Writing is just too much of a perfectionist thing for me. That kills off productivity. Still need to find a better middle ground. But writing is one of the most important things. I still believe that on so many levels.
February 9th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
Back in high school, I was a second-string offensive lineman on the varsity football team, spending most of my time sitting on the bench. During the football season, if we won a game on Friday, then Monday at the start of practice, Coach Roberts would go over with us the press clippings of the game from the local newspapers. On one such occasion, he read a passage extolling the outstanding performance of our fullback, then paused and said, “You know, there’s nothing quite like seeing your name in print.”
At that moment, I realized that in my case, it was never going to happen because of my athletic accomplishments. I figured if my name was ever going to show up in print, it would be because I wrote the article, book, or whatever myself.
Fast forward about 40 years. I’ve written (and had published) four books and over 150 articles, as well as contributing to two other books and writing or contributing to half a dozen or so user manuals. I’ve also written quite a few expert reports — among other things, I serve as an expert witness in lawsuits involving computer technology — some of which have been 60 to 80 pages long (with extensive footnotes). And I run four blogs (here, here, here, and here).
And you know what? Writing never been a compulsion, and frankly it’s not all that easy in most cases. I have to force myself to write, and to be honest I should have a lot more books and articles in print than I do. But as I wrote recently on Facebook in my obligatory “25 things…” post, I am inherently lazy and a really bad (or really good) procrastinator. I need a hard deadline and people breathing down my neck.
My main advantage as a writer is that I can write fast, particularly when I know the material and am facing a tight deadline). I wrote 90% of The Y2K Survival Guide — a 300-page book — in three weeks, doing one chapter each night after work.
I have a fortune cookie fortune taped to the back of my Buxton pocket index card holder. It says, “Procrastination is the fear of success.” But I don’t buy it yet. For me, procrastination is the desire to go do something easier than writing.
I love it when I’ve written something that I consider to be really good; I’ll go back and re-read it again and again, tickled with myself. And it’s very easy for me to write snippets, which is why blogging is a lot more fun. But writing a finished, polished article is an effort of will and discipline, and writing an entire book is an art that I seem to have set aside for the last decade.
And then there’s the novels I’m chipping away at.
..bruce..
February 9th, 2009 at 10:38 pm
My father used to refer to his writing as “mental gas.” Maybe some things just need to be released!
I write for a lot of reasons. When William posed the question over at AMV I responded that I wrote because it kept the crazies at bay. But I think, for me, it’s bigger than that. I believe that language and perception and existence are connected. The way we think/talk about something determines how we perceive it which in turn determines how we experience it. Language, and our ability or inability to use, defines our existence. From that perspective, we are all writers even if we never put anything on paper and nobody reads what we do. We cannot escape the act of ordering language. For me, it’s the importance of language that drives me to type it or scrawl it or read it. I just can’t go about something so essential in a haphazard manner. (Although you would never guess that about me by reading my blog! Language doesn’t get more abused than it does in some of my posts
February 9th, 2009 at 10:40 pm
Forgive my typos! Apparently the language and its import don’t register when I am leaving blog comments. For all the passion I feel, I still have a loooot to learn.
February 10th, 2009 at 10:33 am
My blog writing has evolved over the years. It started as a journal. I figured that if I hit publish and someone out there might actually read it, I might do it (I think the years of hand-writing letters to a missionary didn’t inspire me, they burned me out for life). So I wrote on my blog. Gradually, when people started commenting, I self-censored, tried to be funnier, and worked at attracting an audience, at ratcheting up the comments. Then I got (sort of) over that, although comments still make me SO happy. Now the personal blog feels like almost as much of an obligation the red leather-bound journal that used to call my name as I hopped in bed at night. At some point, I told my mom and MIL and everybody about my blog, which means that I can’t vent about them anymore, when I complain about my ward or my church calling, invariably someone from church reads about it and calls me out. It used to be fun, now it’s work.
Essay writing has become my escape. If my mom only knew what I wrote about her there….
February 10th, 2009 at 11:16 am
I write because it is cheaper than therapy. I write because I want to remember the good days as well as the bad. I write to make my mom miss my kids and come visit us. I write so that I don’t yell at my husband. I write so that I don’t commit road rage. I write so that one day my kids will remember me as a person and not as a list of facts and pictures. I write so that someday my daughters will read about my struggles and they won’t feel so alone as they struggle to be good enough mothers. I write because I love it and it’s cathartic and because it reminds me that on days when I feel like I am nothing but a walking napkin for little people, that I do have a brain and that I am still smart even though most of that brain is now filled with such important things as dentist appointments, bills to pay, and how to make the perfect grilled cheese sandwich.
February 10th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
I have always written,but I was finding my journal hard to keep up with, and full of negative things about my life (well mostly my hubby) I blog because there is an instant audience; I have to check myself before I write. I want my kids to be able to read what I wrote and not think I was crazy. I also write to make others laugh and think “me, too”.
I write to life life twice. Once in the moment when things are happening and once to savor over and over again.
February 10th, 2009 at 10:30 pm
I write because I feel like I have to. I’m one of those people who never vents out loud, and eventually I will have so much emotion bottled up that I absolutely have to have an outlet. I write because if I don’t, I’ll go crazy, and I write because some of my problems seem to resolve themselves once I’ve written them on paper instead of obsessing over them in my head. I also write because I don’t want to forget what has gone on in my life – when I get married, I want my husband to read what I’ve written (as embarrassing as that may be ) and know who I was when I was a teenager.
February 10th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
I don’t consider myself a “writer” per se, but I write for many of the reasons you list. One, to get a laugh. Two, to help validate other people who might be afraid to admit the things that I’m willing to put out there, and three, because every couple of years I write something that I’m really proud of, and it feels incredibly satisfying.
February 11th, 2009 at 10:14 am
Lately, I’ve been writing in my online journal because of my oldest son. He is absolutely positive that just because he is 18, he is an adult and should be treated as one and should be able to do whatever it is he wants. And yet, he’s not behaving like one. I’m trying to get this all down, because, really, it’s hilarious material and he will probably like to read it when he’s older and more mature. And I’d like to know later on that I survived!LOL So for now, I have a lot to write about, because really, every day it’s something else with this kid. I just don’t want to forget this time in our lives, no matter how trying or how annoying or even how funny it is sometimes. Honestly I should have a blog called something like, “Another episode in how to help my 18 yr old become the adult he thinks he is…”LOL I could write every day if I wanted because every day I get a phone call from him and it’s yet another predicament he’s in. Hmmm…it would probably help someone to know they’re not alone….lol
February 12th, 2009 at 9:13 am
Wow. All these happy writers. Strangely, for someone who writes a fair amount, I hate writing. HATE. I do it out of necessity and a sense of duty–my journals are a decades-long record of starting, persisting for varying lengths of time, and quitting, then starting again with paroxysms of guilty attempts to hit the high points of the two or three years I missed. A root canal or writing an essay? SUCH an easy choice. Unmedicated childbirth or a term paper? Easy peasy.
So, am I doomed? Did any of you hate writing and convert? Or is there a writing gene I’m missing? Or, for any of you, is it like running–you hate it while you’re doing it, but love how you feel afterwards?
February 12th, 2009 at 10:30 am
I don’t hate it although I do find it painful so I may be missing the same gene. I don’t write in a journal. My output of creative writing is meager at best. I haven’t so far been able to complete anything longer than a short story — and to make matters worse the creative writing that seems to happen most naturally for me at the moment is super short and episodic.
One of the primary issues is that work saps a lot of my writing energy. You’d think that blogging would do the same thing, but actually I find that it doesn’t quite come from the same place and so I don’t find it incredibly draining.
I’m happiest writing fiction, but I find it incredibly difficult to get into the right groove. Let me correct that — I’m happiest revising fiction. I love rewriting my work. It’s getting the stuff out and on paper un-mediated that I find most painful and difficult and that I tend to avoid.
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