Intermittent Hodgepodge #3: Why Write?

Why am I a writer?

Why do I write? Why does anyone write?

So many answers come to mind that choosing one precise reason seems impossible, maybe even a little pointless. Good books. Bad books. Good movies. Bad movies. Good video games. Bad video games. Traveling. Isolation. Exuberance. Depression. Documentaries about space. Funny conversations that turn into short stories.

In short — everything. Nothing. Life. Ironically, the more I try to put words or logic to it, the more words fail me. Some writer, huh?

The feeling I get from writing reminds me of a sunrise or a sunset over a beach or a mountain landscape. The first taste of coffee in the morning. A long embrace from a loved one. Hearing one of my favorite songs and actually listening to it — because let’s face it, we don’t listen to the songs much anymore after the 300th time. The wonder of a different culture. And other somesuch, arrogant flummery.

Too pretentious?

Can you guess the first time I wrote anything? What if I told you the first time I had an impulse to write — to really write something — was when I saw “McHale’s Navy” in the movie theater with my grandmother? No, not even the original. I’m talking about the 90s remake, starring the illustrious Tom Arnold and David Allen Grier. Who’s David Allen Grier? Exactly.

Sure I’d written small fiction stories in school, probably starting in the second grade. My teacher at the time was very supportive, and she encouraged me to write more.

But before “McHale’s Navy”, I hadn’t written anything really long-form. It makes very little sense, but it’s true. Somehow, something about that terrible movie got my 8-year-old brain churning, and I wanted to write down the plot of that movie, beat for beat. So, I got a spiral notebook and got to work doing just that. I even added drawings at the bottom of the page, in case the reader was confused about plot complexities. Afterall, it’s a highly complex film. I still have the notebook somewhere, and no, it’s never seeing the light of day.

Or what about the next time I had that overwhelming impulse, when I played a series of first person shooters on the Mac. The series was called “Marathon”. It was set in a science fiction colony ship; there’s aliens, AIs that went rogue, exploration, shooting, crazy weapons, just about everything. The studio who made the game, Bungie, would go on to make a little indie game called “Halo”, so I posit that my inspiration this time around had a bit more meat to it.

Actually, not only did I write the plot points from “Marathon” beat for beat in yet again another notebook, but I also drew Marathon comics. I was temporarily drawn to comics (see what I did there?) because I went through a Sonic the Hedgehog phase. No, those won’t see the light of day either. One, because of copywrite violations, and two, because I can’t draw for anything.

After that, I discovered “Ender’s Game”, and I was so severely bored by the first ten pages that it took me probably the whole school year to get through it. (I still think Orson Scott Card doesn’t write the best openers). Once I got through it, though, I was hooked. The sequel, “Speaker for the Dead” remains one of my favorite novels ever. That book is my gold standard for plot, characters, prose, mood, themes, everything.

This time I didn’t set out to copy “Ender’s Game” beat for beat in a notebook with illustrations. No, this was when I got serious and started jotting things down on a computer. No planning, no thought, just pure impulse and inspiration. I became so obsessed with getting this new book done right, that I spent my entire time in middle school and high school editing it, even never finishing it. I still haven’t. I included a chapter in my short story compilation on Amazon, but still.

After that, during my angsty teenage years, my writing was inspired largely by hormones and trying to make sense of them. I spent hours having imaginary conversations with my own brain and published them on my Xanga profile (I’ve since located and deleted every trace of it, so don’t even try). It was a great outlet in hindsight. And no, that also will not see the light of day, because angst is not fun to read about.

Throughout college, it was National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Every November I’d try to crank out a 50,000 word novelette, and believe it or not, I was successful most years, except the first year, when I wrote an amazingly funny Star Wars parody. Well, the first ten pages were amazing and weird, and once again I became so obsessed with getting it right, I edited it to death and never made any forward progress. (I included that opening in my short story compilation as well). However, the other three years were a smashing success. I wrote my longest novel ever in that phase — 150,000 words in all. That novel is actually on my list to revise at some point. So yes, that may actually see the light of day.

I kept doing NaNos until very recently. The idea well is a bit dry these days; however, I have a great backlog of work that can be redone and potentially published someday.

What convinced me to self-publish my first novelette though, which also started as a NaNo, was a series of gut-wrenching breakups. Nothing like a little heartache to get the fingers typing. The current novel I’m trying to publish traditionally came from a world-building exercise I did with my high school friends. The next one’s central idea came from an episode of “Cosmos” with Neil DeGrasse Tyson. I’ve also gotten inspiration from terrible books that I won’t mention here, like “Hunger Games.” (The first one was great; they went downhill very quickly after that).

In short, to answer my original question. What makes me write? Just about everything does. It’s just… what I do. What I’ve always done. What I’ve turned to when I have an idea or a feeling. I think in terms of writing; how to capture that feeling or explain an idea I’ve been grappling with. It’s my passion; it’s what my brain keeps bringing me back to, prodding me to get that next blog published or to get that rewrite done.

And here’s hoping I continue to turn to it as life continues to change. I don’t think I’d be the same without it. If I can make a career out of it, that would be icing on the cake, but for now — it’s literally everything else to me.

Do you like to write? If so, what got you started, and what keeps you going now?