Posted by Why I write
(I want you all to know that, while I write this, I am sitting slightly away from my desk because I saw a spider crawl off somewhere to plot my death, but the show must go on. The things I do for you. Kidding. Kind of...)
I scrolled past this question dozens of times on a list of topics to blog about with “I don’t need to explain myself.” carved stubbornly into my mind. But as I looked at it more the thought occurred to me: why do I write?
At the core, passion is simply the chemical change that your body feels in reaction to something. Is there a reason? Not always. ( I thought I saw the spider on my laptop and I panicked. It’s okay guys it was just the pointer on my screen)
But I love writing and reading and all things literary. One of my favorite things is to go back and read something that I had shelved years ago and compare that to my own style now. So in a sense, I like the growth that goes along with it. Starting from ground zero and moving up the ladder one rung at a time.
I write because I have to. Not for myself, but for people. And yes, I am aware of how that sounds. We are drifting further and further from our literary roots- not all of which is in a bad way- and moving into a new wave of reading. People don’t crack open a book so much anymore, but will open up a story that came across their feed on facebook. I write for the fossilized idea that is being an author.
(update: the spider is not dead, but I can feel it biting me)
Above all else, writing is a release. Everyone has demons, which many of mine I would rather not vocalize. Writing is a way to dig up those graves that I have built and finally say goodbye to the bodies that I put in there without taking another look at. It is an escape from the reality that I have created and the strain of a the ideal that I am a hard working woman and I cannot rest. I do not rest. I will not rest.
At the end of this, there still is no answer to why I write.
I write because I am an author, and that is what we do.
Stay tuned for the next blog called “How it feels to be spiderman” after this thing bites me somewhere and I turn into a Marvel Character.
“We are who we choose to be” – The Green Goblin
-The I-KILLED-THE-SPIDER-AND-WILL-INDEED-LIVE-ANOTHER-DAY Courtney
