Why I Love Writing

A post celebrating my favorite thing to do

I’ve always written. Pretty much as far back as I can recall. I remember doing it when I was four or so. My mum would give me a piece of blank paper and I’d draw a picture on one side and write a story to go with it on the back. I’m relatively sure those stories were only two sentences long and had all the artistic merit of a wet fart, but, hey, we all have to start somewhere.

Then, when I was… six or seven… I had a teacher who went around the class calling on us all in turn, and we each contributed to a collaborative story. When I was called upon we were about halfway through, and I remember I had the whole back half of the story planned out in my head. I laid it all out for her. And I was so smugly proud of myself (because I was insufferable at that age). And I remember I was so pissed when she only took the first idea I’d given her and didn’t finish the way I’d told her. (Utterly insufferable.)

So yeah, writing stories has always been important to me. And because things have always just been that way, I can’t wholly tell you why. I have some in-built wiring that gravitates to them and to the creation of them, and it exists in a blind spot in my head. But I have indulged a smidge of self-reflection over the years—if only in an attempt to become mildly less insufferable—so I’ll throw the results up here.

Firstly, I’m sure some of it comes from a desire for control. That’s a common desire among kids, which I guess is where this all started. When you’re young you get to decide so little. Meal times, bed times, activities, it’s all picked out for you. But when you’re creating a story, you’re in charge. All the events are determined by you. So that maybe where it got its hooks in me, and now as an adult, even though I get to set meal and bed times, a lot of things still feel out of control, so perhaps it’s still nice to have my own little perfect fiefdom, where I’m the boss of everyone and everything, and all the universe obeys my whims.

So… mad egotism? Perhaps that’s part of it.

I’m also sure that escapism is a huge part of it. I definitely read for escapism, to slip away into a land of adventure and excitement. I grew up in a very beautiful, peaceful piece of the English countryside that I didn’t appreciate in anyway as a kid. At first it was just the backdrop of life, and then, when I was a teenager, it was just kind of boring. So, being able to open up a book and go somewhere fantastic and thrilling was always hugely important to me.

Now, I realize that I’m talking about reading here, but reading and writing are inextricably linked in my head. To a certain extent, writing is just me creating something I want to read. I am definitely my own target audience (which may explain some issues my books have had in the market, but this post isn’t about THAT. This is a celebration of my favorite pastime, dammit). So, when I write, I’m slipping away into another world, the same way I do when I’m reading. Plus, when I’m the one creating the world I can be absolutely sure it’s one I wanted to slip away into.

Wait… how did we end up back at mad egotism again?

There’s also… and it is hard to say this without sounding a little bit arrogant, so I apologize… but there is also the fact that I’m quite good at writing. To be fair, I have spent a ton of time getting good at it. And I could certainly be a lot better at it still. But it’s nice to do things that we’re good at. Back when I was a psychology student, I remember learning about one guy’s theory that there is a hierarchy of needs that starts with basics like air and water, but which goes on becoming more and more abstract, until it ends up at the need for mastery. And I do believe he was onto something. We need things we’re good at in life. Indulging in those things scratches an itch in our soul. We get to feel good about ourselves. So, that’s always nice, and I think writing does that for me too.

So, yes, there’s all those reasons. But they’re all a smidge abstract and cerebral, and as valid as I think they are, they also all miss something. Because there is something about the simple act of playing with words that I love that they don’t get at. Because it really is playing. It’s messing around with language and meaning. It’s about assembling things letter by letter, phoneme by phoneme, word by word, and watching meaning emerge out of the void. It’s about seeing what happens when I change that word, and cut that phrase, and when I jam that image up against that image. It’s about staring at a blank page and using nothing more than twenty-six letters and a handful of punctuation to create emotion where there was none. It’s about looking back and finding that I was capable of creating beauty, or horror, or excitement. And it’s also about failing to do that and then pushing things around, and finding alternate routes, and figuring out how to do things differently. It’s about the simple joy of creation. Some people use paint, some use an instrument, or their voice. I use words. And I love it. All of it. Every little thing. Hell, I even love just feeling my fingers tap their way across the keyboard, feeling about the pressure and resistance of each key stroke. All of it is simply wonderful to me. So, that’s why I love it too.

I feel I should apologize here. I usually try to make these mid-week posts about some exploration of craft that might be helpful to others on their writing journey. This hasn’t turned out to be one of those posts. Instead, it’s kind of self-indulgent. It’s me messing about with words as a way of saying I like messing about with words.

In a best case scenario, I suppose it’s a post about connections. It’s a post for other people who love messing about with words, so we can both point at them and say, isn’t playing with these amazing! Hopefully someone got that out of it. Hello.

Worst case scenario, of course, is that writing this is just an act of mad egotism. But I think we’d already established that as a problem.

(Utterly insufferable).