Why I Write
Writing is a lonely, sometimes depressing, often frustrating endeavor. So why do people do it? Why do people open their souls and face rejection and general isolation? I often believe it is a sickness. I occasionally believe it is a mild form of insanity. Sometimes I even believe it is a genetic mutation or defect.
Yet almost daily I sit at my computer, or in front of a blank piece of paper, and I strive to justify the truth of what I am:
I am a writer.
I put down words, striving to forge them into stories; Struggling to accomplish the one thing that all good writers strive for.
Why?
It's the excitement - kind of.
Telling isn't the same as experiencing, but capturing the ultimate 'Ah-ha!' or 'Eureka!' moment, and being able to convey that to others; That's the true accomplishment of a good writer. Maybe even a great writer. The value of a work, its true value, is in touching a reader so perfectly, so uniquely, they never see it coming and are never the same after.
The joy, the excitement, the true bliss, is ultimately in the journey. Telling the story in a way the reader can relate, pulling at the heart strings, playing them in the writer's own composition, reveals the novice or the master.
The real value is what remains at the end; When the final page is turned; When the last sentence is but an echo in the corners of the mind. What exists in that moment is all that exists. It's the end of the journey; It's time never to be recaptured. The question is answered in that moment and it is the only moment that matters.
The masters live on forever in the moments they create. They exist in the echoes; their names synonymous with the feelings they invoke; that they orchestrate. They are and always will be, because they were and because they did.
As writers, we spend our lives working towards a single purpose. We spend our energies and our time striving for something so few will ever comprehend. We strive for that one moment that we ourselves create and that will live on forever, even after we are gone and turned to dust.
As a writer, an artisan, true survival depends on creating that moment, those singular moments, that only exist at the very end- when it's all over and done.What we convey, what remains when the last word is read, is what we contribute to humanity. Those moments are fleeting, yet represent the accumulation of a lifetime. Constructions more delicate than the most complex physical structures; More balanced; More intricate; More beautiful.
The moment is the purpose, the rest is just mechanics. The story is just building materials assembled. Materials that can be obtained in any hardware store (or dictionary). The beauty, the skill, the craftsmanship of how we ultimately assemble them, are what mater. In the end, they are all that mater. Desire is clarified when orchestrating that moment becomes the focus and the story we tell becomes the vehicle of its delivery. When we succeed in creating the moment, we succeed in creating justification for our work and our lives.
What greater satisfaction could any writer strive for?
Yet almost daily I sit at my computer, or in front of a blank piece of paper, and I strive to justify the truth of what I am:
I am a writer.
I put down words, striving to forge them into stories; Struggling to accomplish the one thing that all good writers strive for.
Why?
It's the excitement - kind of.
Telling isn't the same as experiencing, but capturing the ultimate 'Ah-ha!' or 'Eureka!' moment, and being able to convey that to others; That's the true accomplishment of a good writer. Maybe even a great writer. The value of a work, its true value, is in touching a reader so perfectly, so uniquely, they never see it coming and are never the same after.
The joy, the excitement, the true bliss, is ultimately in the journey. Telling the story in a way the reader can relate, pulling at the heart strings, playing them in the writer's own composition, reveals the novice or the master.
The real value is what remains at the end; When the final page is turned; When the last sentence is but an echo in the corners of the mind. What exists in that moment is all that exists. It's the end of the journey; It's time never to be recaptured. The question is answered in that moment and it is the only moment that matters.
The masters live on forever in the moments they create. They exist in the echoes; their names synonymous with the feelings they invoke; that they orchestrate. They are and always will be, because they were and because they did.
As writers, we spend our lives working towards a single purpose. We spend our energies and our time striving for something so few will ever comprehend. We strive for that one moment that we ourselves create and that will live on forever, even after we are gone and turned to dust.
As a writer, an artisan, true survival depends on creating that moment, those singular moments, that only exist at the very end- when it's all over and done.What we convey, what remains when the last word is read, is what we contribute to humanity. Those moments are fleeting, yet represent the accumulation of a lifetime. Constructions more delicate than the most complex physical structures; More balanced; More intricate; More beautiful.
The moment is the purpose, the rest is just mechanics. The story is just building materials assembled. Materials that can be obtained in any hardware store (or dictionary). The beauty, the skill, the craftsmanship of how we ultimately assemble them, are what mater. In the end, they are all that mater. Desire is clarified when orchestrating that moment becomes the focus and the story we tell becomes the vehicle of its delivery. When we succeed in creating the moment, we succeed in creating justification for our work and our lives.
What greater satisfaction could any writer strive for?