Why am I doing this?
It’s a question many writers ask. What the hell made me want to write? There’s so many other ways to spend life. There’s painting, swimming, building, kayaking, cooking, flying in a flying squirrel suit, marketing, and other things that may be more worth the time and money. But instead of selling toothpaste, I decided to sit down at a bed or desk for a few hours and put words on paper. If I’m being extra fancy, I use a computer. No one will ever read most of what’s created. It may not even be re-read by myself. The pages will sit under a bed somewhere for years, being piled on by more pages, pieces of trash, books, and occasional coupons. I may put a small percent of that work to print… in my google docs.
Regardless of the reasons of others, I mainly wrote on a whim. Looking back, I’m not sure where that whim came from. I never had an enlightening moment where the angels came down from the heavens, showering me with prophecies of greatness. I just woke up one day and did it, not knowing where it would take me or if it would even develop into anything beyond a list full of half-baked ideas. Despite my doubts, I had written a monster of a manuscript within a half year. It was an incoherent fanfiction based on Invader Zim and I would never touch it again.
While my long efforts had led to nothing but an unreadable dud of twenty chapters and 100,000 words, there was a piece of it that changed my life. It came in a character that I’d later name Rodney. A curious fellow that lived out in some self-rundown house filled with toads and believed he was a conduit to the Gods. The idea was too fascinating to scrap, and it soon became the premise of an original novel I wrote last November. This, of course, was a rough draft that I will probably rewrite completely. Though the journey will be a long and tedious one, it’s an endurance test I’m willing to take for such a compelling character I’m proud to call my own.
Author’s finding inspiration for their stories are tales that grab the attention of many aspiring writers. There’s always some writer having an acid trip or conversation with God that ignites the spark of creativity, leading to the next great American novel or bestseller. How I got where I was is much more underwhelming, especially considering my novel’s religious subject matter. Despite this, I’ve found a groove for the time being. Sometimes learning what drives you to write is simply discovering material that compels you. It takes lots of experimentation… and time. At least from my experience.
Another part of it is getting the hard truths early. The first time I ever had my writing critiqued was in a zoom session for a creative writing final project. The words and gestures given to me were straight and direct and told me much more about the reader’s feelings beyond their typed reviews. What I had written was a hastily hashed together short story, which was of course based around the character Rodney. My precious muse. While I had about forty-eight hours to get it done, I had a ball writing it. Sometimes I had to stop and laugh at some of the stuff I couldn’t believe I put on the page. I thought I’d written gold. When the written reviews came, they seemed overall positive. But then the live meeting came.
The start of the meeting went by with lots of excitement. Students were giving compliments and critiques towards each other’s stories and I was conversing along with them, enjoying their and the professors’ takes. He’d give a good detailed review of what he thought of each piece, and I admired his thoroughness with what were mostly novice writers. Then came my story. Though what they were saying was about the same as their typed reviews, how they were saying it gave me a whole different picture of their collective opinion. I’d never seen a class meeting seem so uncomfortable towards me in my entire life. The talkative energy of the group became eerily silent. When people talked, they did it in a way like they wanted to get it over with. Not even the professor wanted to pitch in. Instead, he just looked at me and said the story “needed more life” and cut me off before I could utter another question.
Reading back the story now, I can’t believe anyone even attempted to understand what was going on. It was like I had compressed all the main plot points of a surrealist fifty thousand word novel into a small cube. And did it poorly. Strangely enough, I wasn’t even upset about the negative reception. I was mad that nobody would tell me anything, and I had to go off of their body language and vocal delivery to get a true reading of their opinions. Despite the awkward exchange that day, I’m glad I got it handed to me sooner than later. I’ve seen the disastrous effects of an inexperienced writer getting an ego check all too late in the game. Lesson learned: churning out a story in forty-eight hours does not make a masterpiece. (It doesn’t matter if you’re excited about it).
So how to answer the question? Why am I doing this? The only one word explanation I can think of is process. There’re many things that people can aspire to be and achieve, writing a successful book is not an easy one. Most will be fine with a decent Instagram following or a promotion, and for me that’s A-okay. As long as there’s fulfillment in the process, it’s time not lost. That’s what I’ve learned these last few years, what I enjoy doing consistently. What I end up finding worth and accomplishment in even on the days I start out not wanting to do it. Something you can do habitually and not think of and find meaning in it beyond a chore that you tell yourself to do every day. That thing for me I discovered was writing.
I’m actually much more skilled at art than at writing novels and short stories. Starting early high school, I could make realistic portrait and animal sketches good enough to earn me a commission. While I earned some money at it, I got bored doing it after some time. Being accurate to the strand of hair wasn’t enough. I wanted to make more acid surrealist works like the strange creature sketches I used to make when I was a young kindergartner. That’s what I ended up doing near the end of college until I got tired of that style too. Making art has always been a series of sporadic creation periods followed by dry spells and the reason for that came clear to me recently.
Nothing I created ever had a subtext. I’d simply been spending all my time copying the same figures over and over in an assembly line and repeating the entire process again in a different style. While my works were proficient, I rarely put any thought into them. I never thought about how the colors, gestures, expressions, backgrounds, and mediums could create a story with the work. The only thing I did was create a visually pleasing image. I’d never considered creating nuances in the work to evoke an emotion or at least give it intrigue. As a consequence of having nothing to say, I always grew bored.
When I picked up the pencil again, I realized how layered literature could become. There was symbolism, subtext, and many other moving parts I hadn’t considered when creating my drawings. It helped me discover that many interesting art pieces are a snapshot of sorts of those things. Showing something that at first glance seems deceptively simple, but in reality very complicated. Art is one of the few ways to express man’s most unspeakable energies and it took learning about the writing process to understand this.
It’s good to exercise more observation when writing or consuming media. To pay attention to the unseen, the tone of the speech. For me, doing that is the process I enjoy whether consuming or creating. It’s what keeps me working, learning, and fulfilled. What helps me understand things that no other person will understand the same way. It’s why I write.
