A colleague of mine who is also in the writing and editing business asked me the other day why I write. I don't recall anyone ever asking me that. Anyone who knows me at all well knows that writing is a big part of who I am, and so I don't get that question.
My answer? Because I like it. True. There's more to it than that, though.
I think I realized the power of writing many years ago when I was looking through a box in the den of my parents' house and I found a letter my mother had written to my dad. I started reading it without knowing what it was, because it didn't look like a letter. I should have stopped as soon as I knew it was a private letter, of course, but I couldn't. I had to keep reading. The letter had been written years before and I figured that out pretty quickly, but I couldn't NOT read it. Sometime later, years later, after Dad died, Mom told me she often wrote him letters and gave them to him, because it was easier to write how she felt than to try and verbalize it. She wrote to purge herself of her feelings and to avoid fights. [ Hey, don't judge. They were married almost 40 years, so it worked, the letter writing.]
Another time, I found the yearbook of my maternal grandmother from Bessie Tift College, and she had written several poems that were published in there. I knew her as an old lady who made me clean my room, not a college student, so reading her poetry helped me see her in an entirely new way..
I realized in recent years that in becoming a writer, I was the third generation in my family to like expressing feelings in words.
That's what I should have told my colleague the other day. I write because it allows me to express feelings I can't otherwise express. I can create a character and he/she can do and say things that I can't do or say. My characters can go out in the world and visit places where I can't go. They can have adventures. They can have wild love affairs. They can punch somebody in the face. They can say things I would never dare to say.
I am a southerner, born and bred, and we simply don't express emotions in public the way others do. We are taught from birth to be polite. "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all" -- that was the mantra my parents repeated ad nauseam when I was growing up. I can remember thinking in my rebellious little heart Why can't we say not nice things?!? If I don't say it I will explode!
My grandparents were very Victorian and they had a horror of expressing strong emotions in public. My mother has a horror of crying in public -- to such an extent she refused to allow any music whatsoever at my father's memorial service because she was afraid it would make her cry. I remember arguing with her about it and she told me through gritted teeth I will fall apart if I hear music and so there must be NONE. My response: you are newly widowed, so nobody will judge you if you cry! Mother didn't want to ugly cry in front of 300 people. I totally get it, now.
A friend/cousin asked me recently how I come up with plots for stories and books. I had never really thought about it. I think in terms of plots all the time. Doesn't everyone?!? Don't you sit and plot out stories in your head? No? Hmmm...
There's another topic for an entire blog: inner monologues. My father told Mom once the only way he could get through long boring meetings was to do math problems in his head. When I was in corporate America I sat and thought about plots in long boring meetings. Ditto for church -- a sermon, especially, is a great time for me to think about what I will write later. (Episcopalian priests are not usually great sermonizers.)
Stories are how we survive, as humans. Think about it. We watch movies and TV shows for the stories. Think about the term "binge watching" -- we do it a lot now. When my mother was in a rehab place a couple of years ago I was upset and depressed and miserable without her, and I coped by watching 1 or 2 episodes of Game of Thrones every day. I thought I would hate it but I got hooked, like everyone else in the Western World. I have binge-watched a number of shows in the past couple of years. At the end of the day when my work is done and my belly is full of dinner and everything is settled down, I want stories. I want interesting characters. I want surprising plot twists.
There used to be rules in writing for television, believe it or not. Shows had to have moral lessons, even sitcoms. That all changed with Seinfeld. I remember reading their motto was "No hugs, no learning." It was ground-breaking, that show. The days of Donna Reed vacuuming while wearing high heels and pearls were long over.
Now we have not just network TV to choose from, we have HBO, Starz, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and Lord knows what else. I can't keep up. Michael helped me buy a "smart TV" recently and the remote terrified me. I can use it now but I still get nervous. We have 3 remotes for the big TV in the family room. My childhood afternoons spent lying in front of the TV so I was close enough to change the channel easily are long gone.
If you had told me as a child I would grow up to have a ginormous selection of shows to watch, on what amounts to basically a computer monitor with voice controls, I would have laughed myself silly. My TV picture is better than most movie theater movies of my childhood. I can watch first-run movies a few months after they are released from the comfort of my own couch, and pause the movie to go to the bathroom or take the dog to walk anytime I feel like it. My inner child is constantly marveling at it all.
I digressed from my original premise. It happens.
Women are natural storytellers and writers, even though it's only been in the last 150 years many of us have become professional writers. We see things from many different perspectives, because we have to be versatile. Men are supposed to work and help around the house. Women are supposed to work, raise kids, make meals and do housework, feed the pets, buy the Christmas and birthday gifts, plan the vacations, handle laundry, and a million other little things. We don't get to just check out after dinner and do nothing, most of us. We can't take sick days or days off very often.
We are spinning a lot of plates in the air.
Here's the better answer to my colleague's question about why I write:
I write because it lets me say things I can't say any other way, sometimes in very impolite ways. I write because sometimes I can't find stories that reflect my life and my concerns so I have to write my own stories. I write because like food and water and fresh air, words sustain me. I write because in doing so I honor my grandmother and my mother, who lived through two World Wars, the Great Depression, trying to raise families under difficult circumstances, and more. Their voices have become my voice. I write because my voice, however flawed and imperfect, is MINE. Nobody can take it away from me. Because this is America, nobody can silence me. I write because I am the last in a long line of very strong women, and there are things about that I need to say. I write because it brings me joy. I write because I love when people tell me "I couldn't put down your book!" It thrills me to hear that. I write because long after I am dead people may read my words and know that we are all different, and we are all the same, and we matter, all human beings.
I write because I am in love with words.
Words are powerful. Words are agents of change. Words can spark revolutions. Words can save lives. Words ARE life.
I write to remind myself that I am alive.
