Why Write?

In preparing for tomorrow, I noticed that one of my students had another new blog post.

student blog

I thought I had read them all! It turns out, she posted after she was done with her work for the class, and what she said really touched me. It took me years to be able to call myself a writer. I, like Katy, thought the term “writer” should be preserved for those incredible souls who wrote the words that were magic to me, that delivered me from my sometimes painful existence to other worlds where I could somehow breathe better. And those people were geniuses who never wrote rough drafts or made spelling errors. Or, if they did, they would certainly burn the drafts so no one would see them!

So–for highly imperfect me, to think of myself of a writer was too scarey, and certainly arrogant.

As I got older, I found it hard not to think of my self as a writer, since it was just something I did all the time. So I redefined that word for myself to mean “someone who puts words on paper” with no part of the definition addressing the idea of “success” or publication. I also discovered, at about this same time, that the model of “writer as recluse” didn’t work for me. I discovered that lots of women like to write in groups, to share their writing with other women writers.

And then blogs appeared. What do we make of them? I used to get really annoyed at the folks I work with who insisted that a blog was successful only if it had lots of readers. They wanted to make it like every other rat race. I wasn’t interested.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum ; ) I needed mentoring and no one on my campus could do it. My first blog was set up to get advice and connect with other people who did what I do for a living. I was amazed at how satisfying that was, the community that formed, and the way I could save things there and always get back to them (I am organizationally challenged…) And then I started to use them in my classes. I wanted to create a collegial community for them, like the one I had found. It had nothing to do with “art” but it had everything to do with “community.” I find it easy to write in my blog because I DON”T think of it as art! I don’t even think of it as writing, in some ways.

When Katy writes about seeing the movie “Les Amitiés Maléfiques (Poison Friends) and the character Andre who makes of fun of his “little writer friends” she says:

As an English major this came like a smack in the face and it still sort of stings. I don’t write very much as it is outside of class, and I’m almost afraid to. Part of me agrees–I do not want to abuse the beauty of literature.

But I’m torn–can’t self-actualization be found in the act of writing? Isn’t there so much it has to offer the individual? Can masters become great without suffering through the learning process of writing shitty poems and stories? Or is literary mastery inherent in some individuals?

The entire blog process is directly opposed to Andre’s philosophy. It’s tearing me up on the inside. To write or not to write?

I see in this the whole “process vs. product” argument that buzzes around in Composition Theory circles. But it also makes me think about why humans write in the first place. Yes, to remember things, but also to figure things out, and to trade ideas with people who aren’t in the same room with us. And sometimes just to make something beautiful. I have seen blogs in each of these categories. And maybe there are more.

But what I want to say to Katy is: never let the love of beautiful writing keep you from writing. No one else can say what you can say. Say it or it is lost.