Why Writing?
We on this site are authors. There are so many ways to tell a story, so why do people -people like us - choose to tell it in writing? Rather than verbally telling an auidence about some sort of tale, authors decide to isolate themselves while they silently type their stories. Oh, but if one could hear the symphony that sounds in an author’s head while the tapping of a keyboard is underway. There are many reasons for which authors write, and no single one of them is truly an absolute explanation.
Some stories are relistic. When I read them, they could, for all I know, be a recorded work of truth. These stories are entertaining because they are plausable. They could have happened in real life. Some of them did, while others are simply realistic in order to fool the mind into imagining that it really did happen. But regardless, both are enticing, and both, I find, are enjoyable to write.
Some stories are fantastic, and could never be believed to be real. Science fiction or fantasy, the author fools no one when they write it. These stories are written because they cannot be told in any other way. They cannot occur in real life, so they are painted into a description. Unlike a painting, the story moves, and it develops.
Sometimes authors compose works to escape the burdens of everyday life. To throw off the politics and cruelty of the day and take on a new set of burdens, a controlled set of burdens to which others are written into, is a tremendous gift. Writing one’s way out of the world for if only a few moments - that is impressive.
Some tend to create monuments to themselves. I will admit, this is one of the many motivators that I utilize when writing. To be able to look back at books and past publications - one’s own - is a satisfying and promising privelage. And, if that author is lucky, they may be remembered for some time.
But above all, people like to tell stories, stories that can be recorded. They like to manipulate their characters to their will, and take words that already exist and organize them to create a discernable work of literature from them. A sculpter will tell you that the statue beneath a block of marble is already there, they only chisel away the excess. Similarly, authors chisel away at the dictionary until their work emerges. Each book, each poem, each quote, each line...It all carries a title, or a cover, or a name, that separates it from other works. It says: “this is a story that is unique from the rest,” as they all are. There are many reasons to write, yes, and that is because there are many stories to tell.
To swim within the ocean of the nearly one hundred thirty million books that have ever been written would be a joyous, saddening, horryfing, fantastic, terrible, glorious journey. We as authors all contribute to this collective pool. From Dante and Pico, to Tolkien and Hemingway, we define fantasy, and magic, and history, and tragedy...Because we are the ones recording it.
