Why Write?

Over the years, I have studied literary theory, taken writing classes, and attended conferences where I met other writers, editors, and agents. In all that time, I never really developed a theory of writing for myself. That is, I never figured out why I write. I’ve never been satisfied with the cliché that writers simply have to write, that they are somehow compelled to do so. That’s none too helpful. Besides, I think it’s dead wrong. Nobody has to write the way we must do other things to survive, even if we’re talking about an individual’s life purpose. We learn to write, and—for some of us—that takes years, even a lifetime.

Writing hasn’t been easy for me, but not because of writer’s block. It turns out that waxing poetic about mundane things like grocery bags and doorknobs enables you to take on just about any topic, although lately I’ve shied away from politics—it’s overwhelming. For me, what makes writing hard is the energy drain. In a word, writing is exhausting. In that sense, it’s very much like teaching. They both require shots of espresso and bottles of B‑vitamins. Occasionally, the shots were whiskey.

Maybe I should say they used to require those things. Not so much anymore. The reason? I can explain it in terms of boxing and judo, which may be why I’ve gravitated toward those sports in recent years. In boxing, you learn to drop your shoulders and breathe, which may sound easy enough but is incredibly hard when someone is trying to clobber you. In judo, you learn to move gracefully and swiftly until the absolute last moment, when you explode with power—or, as Maximus put it, you “unleash hell.”

I don’t want to make too much of the comparison, since my point is simply that I’ve identified two basic motivations for my writing. The first is guilt. I’ve realized that I write out of guilt over things I have done, have not done, or could have done. There’s a lot of perfect verb action going on there. Many of us can look back at moments in our past and cringe, but I’ve discovered that writing about them gets them off my chest and out of my system. Think of it as a kind of sacrifice in which the end product, whether post, story, or novel, stands in for the lamb or maybe is the lamb.

A good example is the play Hershey Park, based on a family vacation to the famed amusement park in Pennsylvania years ago (see Hershey Park). A staged reading will be performed in one month, and, hopefully, a full production sometime later. But the weight of that trip and the guilt I carried—justified or imagined—are gone. The lamb has been sacrificed.

The second motivation for my writing is confession. This happens through fictional characters like an older Jesuit priest solving a homicide on a college campus and wrestling with his demons as he does so, although the characters become their own persons and reflect me to some extent but not entirely. This implies that I live through them so that I am not confessing anymore but projecting, which itself is a form of confession.

This blog site is the most obvious example of confession, including everything from jobs I have held (see All Banged Up) to dreams, fears, and acts of downright dishonesty (see Regulation 60). I don’t expect that writing about them absolves me of anything, particularly when it comes to situations in which I acted on personal “vibes.” Always risky, that. Let’s just say that “nothing ventured, nothing gained” can feel even worse than not venturing at all, but that’s what happens when you roll the dice. Still, the loss resulted in a series of what I call the “No, Non, Nyet” posts, which are now some of the most popular on the site.

I used to think it would be a comfort to write simply because I wanted to tell a story, but then I realized there is no such thing as just telling a story. The greatest stories—Odysseus, Jesus, Dante—are not about the stories themselves but where they lead. Where does writing out of guilt and the need for confession lead? I’m hoping to insights for me but also for anyone who comes to this site regularly. That’s about the best I can do, with or without the espresso.

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