I wanted to write something frivolous this week. To make us laugh. Instead, this came out. Sorry.

Why Do We Write?

Simple question: why do we write? Is it the fame, the adulation, the snarky comments? Is it the personal search for perfection? Does the quest for the mot juste compel us to the computer page? I wonder.

I typed it into Barney Google. This is a sampling of the answers I got.

Why People Write:

• Writing is perhaps… a way of trying to make sense of a difficult world.   – Bernard MacLaverty, author of Grace Notes.
• I write about what I am going through in life, my challenges, my triumphs, my struggles.   – CR Mooney, 'Christian Writer's Corner' blogger.
• Why do I write? To feel I’m alive, from the deepest depth of my existence.   – Kundan Pandey, a writer from Delhi.
• It’s a job like any other job, and unless I’m getting paid for it, I don’t want to do it.   – Curtis Kheel, writer/producer for A Town Called Eureka.

Are you in there somewhere? Why do you write?

George Orwell wrote a famous essay about why he wrote. He seemed to think it was political. I suspect he thought everything was political, the way I seem to think everything is spiritual.

No matter what you think it's about, why do you do it?

Possible Reasons to Write

1. To fill up space, so the Post won't be short this week.
2. To pay the bills.
3. To tell someone you haven't met that you love them. Or that Prajapati¹ loves them. Or that they are loved. Period.
4. To ask 'why?' Whether you find an answer or not.
5. Because you woke up one morning and you wrote down this song, but you can't remember who to send it to. (Thank you, James Taylor.)
6. Because it's the only way to get that tune out of your head.
7. To tell the utterly fascinating factoid you can't bear not to share.
8. To put to rest – finally – the ghost of your great-grandfather that bumped around the farmhouse at night.
9. To pay tribute.
10. To render justice.
11. To paint butterflies.
12. To ask 'why not?'

Do You Need a Reason?

Do you need a reason? In a word: no. You don't need a reason unless you think you do. And thank the powers that created computers, you've always got the tools at your fingertips, whenever, however, and whyever you feel the need.

Does it matter why? In a word: yes. Because knowing why you're writing will tell you how you want to go about it. Do you, like so many on the internet, want to attract only likeminded readers? Then by all means, continue to write in jargon, disregard conventions from outside the group, tell your in-jokes, use your code words. Do you want to communicate? Rethink.

Do you want to write so that a child could understand you? Think about the words you use. Do you want to chase away all but the cognoscenti? Get complicated. Be my guest.

Do you write ' to feel you're alive, from the deepest depth of your existence'? By all means. But think about the mental world you're living in. You might want to write yourself some furniture to go along with the unicorns and faeries.

Why did I write this? I don't know. Maybe somebody needed it. Maybe I thought I needed it.

Prajapati made me do it.

Writing Right with Dmitri Archive

Dmitri Gheorgheni

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