Why I Write

In my short life I've often been asked the question "Why do you write?". Usually this question comes from someone older than I who, having worked their fingers to the bone at a job they don't care much for but sees no point in "silly" dream-chasing, wants to point out the fallacy of such endeavours.

I wish I was of brilliant enough mind to come up with the quote by Michele Shea I posted earlier this morning.

"Creativity is...seeing something that doesn't exist already. You need to find out how you can bring it into being and that way be a playmate with God."

Those two sentences embody my love of writing. I write to simply because I enjoy it and if others enjoy it too that's all the better.

Granted I'll more likely than not never be on the level of Hemingway, Faulkner or Dickens but if that was my reason for writing I should have long ago packed it in and moved on.

I write simply for the love of story telling. Yes I have the overwhelming desire to write professionally but at its core its all As best as I can remember, my love affair with writing began as early as 2nd grade when I wrote some truly awful stories and alaphabet books. I wrote like crazy up through middle school when, and I'm ashamed to admit this, I quit after being mocked by some little punk that ripped a story I was working on out of my notebook. My preteen mind was smashed by this open mockery of my work and I unfortunately succumbed to it, ceasing to write for several years.

As a teenager I picked it up again during my time in various production classes, writing scripts, short stories, "skits" and in short everything short of poetry (I've never had the talent for it). Since then I've almost always been writng something, even if the vast majority have been things that only my eyes have ever seen. I've probably started and trashed (and sometimes started again) about four or five projects for every year I've walked the earth. More recently as I've grown and developed a slightly thicker skin I've allowed handfuls of people to view what I've done. This I feel was necessary since no one that has ever made a career of writing without exposing their work (and by proxy themselves) to the world.

Brevity has never been something I've been good at, so in the interest of not rambling too much longer let me get to the two-fold point to all the above. First and foremost I just wanted to clarify that I write because it simply makes me happy, which I feel I did. My secondary point was to point out the foolishness of not doing something that makes you happy because someone else looked down on you for it. I sacrificed fully a quarter to a fifth of my young existence not doing something I loved because some turd in middle school made me feel bad. See the problem there? If I allowed the mockery of others to derail me like that today I'd be sitting on my hands attempting to do nothing with my life. Everywhere you turn in life you'll find people who will try and break any and all dreams you have. Don't let them do it, embrace what you love even if you'll never "be somebody" in doing it. Because afterall doing something you love because you love it is what matters most.