Why I Love to Write

Hi.  Long time no see.

I feel like I must share to the world the reason I love to read, but moreso why I love to write.  It’s simple: the magic.  There is magic in writing.  There is magic in reading.  And when you write, you get to be a part of that magic.

There is something so compelling to me about being able to dive into a book, to crack its spine and smell the ink and glue, and submerse myself into the text so deeply that I forget what time it is, I forget what day it is, I forget that I’m supposed to be making dinner or getting ready for bed because I have to be up early tomorrow.  I can project myself into the world of the novel and disappear.

To be clear, wanting to disappear does not mean my life isn’t wonderful.  It is splendid!  But that says nothing to my desire to be able have the experiences of many other lives!  To be able to fly with my own wings?  To speak another language?  To wield actual magic? To experience and overcome the frustrations of life as a woman in the 1800s?  To be scared shitless and escape with barely my life, improving my character and expanding the definition of myself during that escape from tricky situations that cause me to have adrenaline rushes without ever having to ACTUALLY threaten my life?  It’s amazing and wonderful. 

And it saddens me because this world is increasingly caring less about the magic that comes from the written word.  And please, let me emphasize this: the WRITTEN word.  There is much to be gained from READING your story and your adventure versus WATCHING it on a television.  With reading, your imagination fills in most of the blocks while the author merely takes you on the journey, like you’re following a string of candies.  You’re mind is actively involved, working, processing, guessing, deducing, creating.  The details of these candies and where they take you are yours to decide and to conjure and create, so long as they remain candies along a journey that at least somewhat makes sense, which is where the author comes in.  The author gets to be a part of it – the catalyst for such an adventure to begin. 

As the author, not only are you thrilled and excited and drawn into the book as a reader, eager to read the next page, but it is, quite literally, the SAME for an author!  I myself, while writing my book, find that I can get frustrated, not by the story or what the people do (although, yes, it can be frustrating… very…) but, let’s say if I’m reading, I get frustrated that I CANNOT READ FAST ENOUGH and it’s hilarious because as I write my book, I’m interested in knowing what happens next.  I want to
“watch” the next chapter unfold in my head as though I would when I just grab a book by Rowling or Peters or King or whomever else.  But the frustration comes from the fact that YOU CAN’T KNOW unless you WRITE IT.  So you have to write it.  Do you know where it’s going?  Hell no.  Of course you don’t.  You did at the beginning.  Or at least you thought you had a direction.  And then you started fleshing out the characters, giving them quirks and idiosyncrasies while drawing on the traits that make your readers love them, and then… well, you succeed.  They become 3D characters.  And truly, I mean it when I say that 3D characters – erm... people – do whatever the hell they please, with no care to where you were going or what you were doing, or where you intended this story to go.  They just pick it up, with their little, miniature, invisible hands, and CARRY IT OFF leaving you stranded by yourself, in a dessert, with nothing but your typewriter, a stack of paper, and if you’re lucky – some booze.  Got to have booze to get the muse and genius to start chatting.  Well.  Sometimes.  It sure helps.  But the frustrating part is that you have to WRITE the story you are eager to READ, and that you yourself, the author, the “creator” they say, of these characters don’t even know where your book is going.  And neither do your characters!  Oh but they do.  They’re tricky little sons of bitches and they like to collaborate and conspire against you, doing things behind your back, changing the dynamic, wow-ing you with traits you didn’t even know they had…

And then, when your done, whether with the first or second or third or last draft – it’s like you’ve just given birth!  All this work, all the sweat and blood and tears and bloody knuckles from pounding your fists against a wall because your characters are just so. damn. stubborn pays off.  It pays off.  You succeed through the journey.  You went through the shambles, you stumbled through the rough patches, and came out with one hell of a story and adventure – and truly, memories – that you created and made real. 

The funny part about it is that you ride along with the readers as your story unfolds, and then once it’s complete, it doesn’t even feel like your story.  Sure, you did the work, you wrote, you slaved away and showed up as the muse and genius had a conversation, and sometimes an argument, and struggled as you tried to get down what both of them were yacking and trying to keep it in line with your book, and you were the one that went back and tied up the loose ends and left some to keep the readers pissed and curious at the same time… it is yours, but really, it is its own.  No one owns it.  It becomes alive.  Who was that man that said an inanimate object could not be alive?  Did anyone say that?  I’m sure they did.  But whoever the hell it was is wrong. 

And that’s the beauty, that’s the magic, of being a writer.  You create this fantastic world (and that doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be a fantasy book) and you pour all your heart and soul into this damn thing that doesn’t seem to want to go anywhere, you hate it, you love it, you cry, you scream, you pout, and then you just work, and then, BOOM.  You write the late word, and you graduate from a writer to an author.  And as proud of it as you are, as mystified as you are from the characters and the story and the plotline, it no longer feels like yours.  And so then you celebrate it, you pass it around, you publish it.  And you feel almost silly for people to be praising what you did, because again, it doesn’t feel like yours.  You were just the conduit.  And then after the celebration, you go back to your typewriter, back to your keyboard, or back to your pen and paper, and begin again.  Because that story is done.  And it was so THRILLING, you’re ready for more.  And you enter with a sense that you’ve got it this time.  It won’t rock you as hard as it did the first time.  And you’re wrong.  You’re always wrong, just like laundry is never done, and the dishes are always dirty.  But the stories are always exciting, always fun, and always fulfilling.  Here we go.  Round two.