Writing for the Self
- Staff Writer
- Aug 31
- 4 min read
Why should I write? There is no good answer but this: because you feel as though you have to.
When people ask me how often they have to write in order to be a writer, in order to consider themselves seriously as one, in order to receive writing advice, I tell them that everything besides writing that is not the actual act of putting pen to paper is frequently irrelevant. Instead, I think of the Viola Davis quote. The question behind all art is “Why?”. I like to rephrase it for writing. “Who?”
The imaginary audience in your head never does fully go away. In some ways, it’s necessary. It keeps you grounded, self-conscious. Zadie Smith refers to the act of writing as something laced with shame, and I’m prone to agree. But that’s only the neurosis of it. The act of writing, then, is actively combating that shame. Why do I write? Who do I write for? Myself, of course.
I encourage writing as a habit. Writing as something unconscious- when you scribble a half-thought joke into the napkin at a restaurant, or a line that strikes your brain. Just as a sequence of words. Without thought of publication or awards. Writing doesn’t have to be done in front of a computer, or into a Word program. Writing is fluid and spontaneous. Unlike doctor's appointments or career progression, writing can't be neatly scheduled. An amount of time holds no particular promise for productivity rates. Inspiration comes like lightning, unpredictable and completely without warning, and waiting around a computer waiting for it to strike might, paradoxically, cause that pot to boil slower.
If you’re reading this, you likely don’t have the luxury or punishment, depending on how you view it, of spending endless hours in front of a computer, typing out a first draft. You aren’t a professional novelist or screenwriter. You write for pleasure, the way all writers begin. We don't do this for money! Or for acclaim or for dignity. Every single writer can say, with their full devotion, that they love the craft, and hate it at times, but still come around to mostly love. Otherwise we would have given it up ages ago. Still, most writers who write do it casually, this word meaning, specifically in this context, as not doing it for a living. I read an article once about a man who wrote a short story every day for a year and printed them and put them all inside a cardboard box, never sharing them with anyone. That man maybe loved the written word more sincerely than the highest paid writer on Earth. The word “writer” implies nothing but a person who writes.
I encourage you to write without second-guessing each word. Write what you like. Don’t think of concepts or themes or any of the structure English teachers have undoubtedly pointed out to you before in class. Those are things that, frankly, you need to look for in other people’s work, not your own. Don’t worry about how the work needs to be intelligent or thoughtful or it needs to say this about that. All the work needs to be is of you. That is all the short story or novel or poem must contain. Not necessarily of you in the sense that it is autobiographical, but that it is something that you want to write.
Because frankly, the act of writing is not so noble that you should do it if you don’t truly enjoy what you are writing. If you were a gifted heart surgeon who detested surgery, I would be tempted to say that maybe you should continue the endeavor for the greater good of the world. Ourselves, as writers, find that we have the luxury to put down the pen for a few hours, a week, months, a year, and find things in the world’s order mostly still okay when we return. That's not to say your work isn't important. But keep that imaginary reader in your head as a friend, as an adoring fan who can see no wrong, not as the eyes of a stranger, or the bloodied pen of a critic. Otherwise motivation may fall quickly. I find that it tends to produce much better results, too, when you remove the aspect of imaginary pressure. It also tends to result in if not better, than at least authentic work, which still an adjective that possesses nobility, even if it’s trite.
Write because you love it, and because you find stories and words spilling out of you that is a rate uncontainable in your head. Write because your brain happens to have the contortions of a particularly over-filled tank of goldfish, and the goldfish keep trying to spill out. Let them leap over the walls. See what they do. See how they transform- into different nouns, adjectives, objectives. See where the story takes you by putting it onto the page without pretense. And the good work will follow, naturally, because you love the work, and you find pride and dignity in it. There is so much else to think about in the world than something as simple as jotting down a limerick, the half-formed idea of a short story, and writing should never be the thing to cause you discomfort when dentist appointments, job interviews, and waiting in long lines exist. In the meantime, as you wait to begin to write, look out your window. Live. The best antidote to writer's block is to stop thinking about the writer's block. The truth about writer's block is that writer's block only refers to a time not spent writing. Renamed, that time only becomes a time spent with the world, with friends, with family. Living is not the antonym of writing. It is the only thing that makes it possible.
