Tag Archives: art

The Reasons I Write!

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It has been a while. I thought I’d talk about the reason why I write. The actual reason is pretty difficult to pin down, because I think at different points in my life it’s been for different reasons.

When I was little I used to wander around making up stories in my head, and like a typical five-year-old I would forget the entire narrative five minutes later. I suppose this process eventually got frustrating, and one way to solve it was to get it written down. I think now I’ve ‘grown up’ a bit (and so has my writing), the reasons are a bit more complex.

When I witness a wonderful moment, and I want to share it with people, my natural response is to try and find the combination of words which evoke that moment best. I know from my own reading that words have the ability to impact people almost as strongly as the initial moment does, if not more. Reading books, poetry, even random internet quotes and consequently feeling a whole spectrum of emotions spurred me to try and do the same: write in a way that people can understand and relate to, and if not that, in a way that will make them open their eyes to something new. Because while often reading is a form of escapism, it can also make a person see the world (or at least a small part of it) in an entirely different way.

I don’t think those feelings are limited to the reader. So many times I’ve started to write a poem, and found myself bringing in a completely new idea simply because of where the words lead me to. On a much more personal level, converting life issues into words and imprisoning those words between lines on a page seems to make them less horrific. So in that way, writing is as much of an escape and a learning curve as reading is.

I write then, because I have read many splendid combinations of words that inspired me to try and create some myself. I also write because I want to learn things, and be in print, and be a good writer. I feel like there are lots of lessons for me to learn which are hidden in the words I’ve not written yet. Also, sometimes the only way to make sense of this insane world is to get it down on paper.

Was it good for you, too?

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From an article last September, in discussing Obama’s choice of Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending as bedtime reading material:

Having the president of the United States read your novel is the ultimate test of the principle that good writing makes every reader think it’s about them. In this case, that inclusionary principle washes back over the president. Barnes’s exquisitely tempered novel is a long way from the White House – the protagonist is a Brit who has failed at most things – and yet there it is, the common strand, the arc of empathy: the story of a man going back over his life, weighing the choices he made and their long-range consequences, wondering, at the end of the day, if he did the right thing

Everyone has a different feeling about what constitutes good writing. For me, it is the writer’s ability to tell the truth, no matter what the genre. It’s that moment in any book – whether wild fantasy or romance or vampire chick lit or anything else – which makes you say, ‘That’s it!’ A moment of language or dialogue or observed behaviour which is true to us.

That, and the ability to tell a good story.

So what makes writing good for you? That elusive sense of truth? Empathy regardless of your own position? Skilled or innovative use of language? Or something else entirely?