WHY I WRITE
This essay was written as the first of three projects for the MIW Gateway course. I was simply asked to explain why I write. I had already written a Why I Write essay for a previous writing class, so I was initially worried that I would not be able to separate the two assignments well enough. However, I had recently adopted a more stream of consciousness style of writing, and this made my new Why I Write essay feel very different from the first. This has a much more personal feel to it, and it explores my anxieties with writing as well as my triumphs. I love the way that my sentences flow on and on and then stop abruptly. It feels very genuine. Throughout the experience of planning and writing this, I was able to really discover why I write. This is without a doubt one of my favorite pieces I have written, and I also believe it is one of the strongest.
I don’t write for the same reason that many others do—because pretty words come to mind that cannot go unwritten or because the scene at the coffee shop from earlier that morning was so inspiring or because there is a little journal always within reach that begs to be written in. No, I write mostly because I have to. I realize that’s not sweet-sounding or inspiring in any way, but that is the truth. I only write when writing is required of me, and that is the pure simplicity of it all.
I don’t write for fun. I do think writing is fun, though.
This makes me a different kind of writer than the people typically thought of as writers. I don’t fill my time with free writing, and the closest thing I have resembling a journal is my planner decorated with scrapbook paper, which serves purely organizational purposes. The absence of free writing in my spare time doesn’t mean I don’t wish I could. It sounds relaxing, stimulating—like a great way to escape the everyday madness. But I just don’t work like that. I only write because I have to, so the more interesting thing becomes not why I write, but how I write and why I like it.
I tend to focus more on how things are said, as opposed to what is actually said. The construction of writing interests me. The structure of a sentence can exist in so many forms, and each can emphasize different points to alter the meaning ever so slightly each time. One word can make or break the emotion a sentence carries, and one phrase can stick with a reader for minutes, even days, and if it’s really spectacular, for life.
Unfortunately, these magical phrases don’t spill onto my page in any kind of poetic way. Words come to me slowly and deliberately, and I love the process of carefully selecting the perfect word for a sentence and nestling it between purposely chosen punctuation. It reminds me of the game Operation, where you have to pick the exact piece and cautiously insert it into the right place. Intention is everything. It takes time. Lots of patience, too.
My original love for sentence structure and the nitty-gritty parts of writing was likely born from attending a grammar-obsessed elementary school, where transitive verbs and prepositional phrases were labeled as though we weren’t in third grade and dying to go play at recess. Skip forward about eight years to the introduction of sentence combining into my life, and my relationship with writing starts to make sense. We were given twenty sentences in ten pairs of two, and our job was to combine them using various punctuation. Why I was immediately drawn to this, I’m not entirely sure. It doesn’t matter, though. I loved it, I still do, and it remains a large part of my writing.
Although I so easily declare that I love writing, especially to my fellow science majors who say they hate it, there are definitely parts of writing that I could do without. Whenever a teacher says “Let’s do some free writing,” even for five minutes, panic sets in. As others frantically scribble away, I sit there trying to manage one perfect sentence after another—an unrealistic expectation, I know. But that is how I write: one slow sentence at a time. I’m always a strange mixture of impressed and discouraged when everyone else shares what they wrote. I find myself wondering “How on earth did they come up with that in five minutes? How did they write that so fast? Why can’t I write like that?” I know the answer though, and it is because when I write, I need to plan first. I tend to use planning as a way to procrastinate actually beginning the paper itself, but I justify this to myself because technically it is still productive.
To feel most at home with my writing, I have to be creating some kind of argument or analyzing some literary work. I have managed to choose my English classes such that the vast majority have been primarily literary analysis with a argument mixed in. This has been both a blessing and a curse. I’ve gotten really good at literary analysis, but when I have to write anything remotely creative, I sit and stare at a blank computer screen. The cursor blinks at me like cats blink at you when they are asking “What do you want?” and I look at the screen not really knowing what I want. I want my ideas to shape into words and then into sentences that sound like they are worth reading, but it’s hard to tell if they are. Sometimes I just want what I’m saying to make sense to others even if it doesn’t make complete sense to me.
Sentence structure, wording, and punctuation are what make sense to me. I guess you could say that I write for these things. I write because I like to manipulate how things appear on the page. I’ll move this idea next to this other one, and push this other idea over into the next paragraph. Then I’ll make one sentence really long, almost to the point of letting it ramble, but reigned in just enough to keep my readers sane and to get my message across. Then I’ll throw in a short sentence. This is partly why I write, for these things. But there has to be more, right?
There is a little more. Although the simplest answer to why I write is because I have to, I will admit that writing does a lot for me. It requires clear organization of everything bouncing around in my head, and it requires that I be confident in what I am sharing with the world. I can’t just start writing on a whim because I am afraid to commit to what I’m putting down with what feels like so little thought. Spoken words disappear into the air, but written words must be deleted. Deliberately removed, backspaced or erased. If I’m not sure about what I write, I can’t expect my audience to feel sure about what they read. Writing forces me to commit to my beliefs and it exposes my hesitations. I discover so much when I write, even though I only enjoy such discoveries when they have been required of me.
Maybe I should keep a journal.
I don’t write for fun. I do think writing is fun, though.
This makes me a different kind of writer than the people typically thought of as writers. I don’t fill my time with free writing, and the closest thing I have resembling a journal is my planner decorated with scrapbook paper, which serves purely organizational purposes. The absence of free writing in my spare time doesn’t mean I don’t wish I could. It sounds relaxing, stimulating—like a great way to escape the everyday madness. But I just don’t work like that. I only write because I have to, so the more interesting thing becomes not why I write, but how I write and why I like it.
I tend to focus more on how things are said, as opposed to what is actually said. The construction of writing interests me. The structure of a sentence can exist in so many forms, and each can emphasize different points to alter the meaning ever so slightly each time. One word can make or break the emotion a sentence carries, and one phrase can stick with a reader for minutes, even days, and if it’s really spectacular, for life.
Unfortunately, these magical phrases don’t spill onto my page in any kind of poetic way. Words come to me slowly and deliberately, and I love the process of carefully selecting the perfect word for a sentence and nestling it between purposely chosen punctuation. It reminds me of the game Operation, where you have to pick the exact piece and cautiously insert it into the right place. Intention is everything. It takes time. Lots of patience, too.
My original love for sentence structure and the nitty-gritty parts of writing was likely born from attending a grammar-obsessed elementary school, where transitive verbs and prepositional phrases were labeled as though we weren’t in third grade and dying to go play at recess. Skip forward about eight years to the introduction of sentence combining into my life, and my relationship with writing starts to make sense. We were given twenty sentences in ten pairs of two, and our job was to combine them using various punctuation. Why I was immediately drawn to this, I’m not entirely sure. It doesn’t matter, though. I loved it, I still do, and it remains a large part of my writing.
Although I so easily declare that I love writing, especially to my fellow science majors who say they hate it, there are definitely parts of writing that I could do without. Whenever a teacher says “Let’s do some free writing,” even for five minutes, panic sets in. As others frantically scribble away, I sit there trying to manage one perfect sentence after another—an unrealistic expectation, I know. But that is how I write: one slow sentence at a time. I’m always a strange mixture of impressed and discouraged when everyone else shares what they wrote. I find myself wondering “How on earth did they come up with that in five minutes? How did they write that so fast? Why can’t I write like that?” I know the answer though, and it is because when I write, I need to plan first. I tend to use planning as a way to procrastinate actually beginning the paper itself, but I justify this to myself because technically it is still productive.
To feel most at home with my writing, I have to be creating some kind of argument or analyzing some literary work. I have managed to choose my English classes such that the vast majority have been primarily literary analysis with a argument mixed in. This has been both a blessing and a curse. I’ve gotten really good at literary analysis, but when I have to write anything remotely creative, I sit and stare at a blank computer screen. The cursor blinks at me like cats blink at you when they are asking “What do you want?” and I look at the screen not really knowing what I want. I want my ideas to shape into words and then into sentences that sound like they are worth reading, but it’s hard to tell if they are. Sometimes I just want what I’m saying to make sense to others even if it doesn’t make complete sense to me.
Sentence structure, wording, and punctuation are what make sense to me. I guess you could say that I write for these things. I write because I like to manipulate how things appear on the page. I’ll move this idea next to this other one, and push this other idea over into the next paragraph. Then I’ll make one sentence really long, almost to the point of letting it ramble, but reigned in just enough to keep my readers sane and to get my message across. Then I’ll throw in a short sentence. This is partly why I write, for these things. But there has to be more, right?
There is a little more. Although the simplest answer to why I write is because I have to, I will admit that writing does a lot for me. It requires clear organization of everything bouncing around in my head, and it requires that I be confident in what I am sharing with the world. I can’t just start writing on a whim because I am afraid to commit to what I’m putting down with what feels like so little thought. Spoken words disappear into the air, but written words must be deleted. Deliberately removed, backspaced or erased. If I’m not sure about what I write, I can’t expect my audience to feel sure about what they read. Writing forces me to commit to my beliefs and it exposes my hesitations. I discover so much when I write, even though I only enjoy such discoveries when they have been required of me.
Maybe I should keep a journal.