Over the past two years, I have poured much of my time and energy into writing a novel. I have attended writing classes, workshops, and seminars. My bookshelf is crowded with books about the craft of writing, all of which I have read and absorbed. I have consistently set aside several hours each week to devote to the task of putting words on a page. I do all of this in my free time, when I am not doing my day job.
Now, there is no one waiting in anticipation to read my story. The odds of being published for a first-time author are negligible. There isn’t a promise of any kind of reward at the end of this arduous journey that I have chosen to go on. So then, why would I do all of this? Am I some kind of nut? Did I fall on my head and lose my senses? Who, in their right mind, would spend hours and hours of their precious leisure time struggling to pen a coherent story that no one else might care about? Do I need psychiatric help? There are tons of other things that I can do with my time. Yet day after day, I find myself glued to the chair in front of my laptop, with my word document open and the cursor blinking expectantly.
I owe it to myself to answer the question of why I want to write. First and foremost, I write to communicate. I am a story-teller at heart. Ever since I was a child, I loved to tell stories, real or made-up, to friends, family or anyone would listen to me. Writing a novel is just an extension of that need to communicate with the world, to share my stories.
Writing is an extraordinary form of communication. It transcends time and space. I am sitting here writing this in Bellevue, USA on November 22nd, 2009. You might be reading it in another city, another country and at some time in the future. Didn’t we just communicate, transcending the barriers of time and space? I can write a story today about a horrific car accident in the snow and how the passengers heroically survived. This story might somehow be read five years later by a twenty-two year old in London, who had a similar accident soon after getting his driver’s license. He might relate to the story I’ve written. Now, I don’t know this person and he doesn’t know me. We are not even in the same year together, let alone the same room. Yet, we have connected with each other. Writing is a form of telepathy, a meeting of the minds. Writing is magic.
Another compelling reason for my passion to write is the simple joy of creation. When I write my story, I feel like I am playing God. I have built an imaginary world. I have put people in this world and I decide what happens in the lives of these people. I make them laugh. I make them cry. I make them scared. I make them endure ordeal after ordeal and watch them learn and grow as people. As I do this, I get a feeling of euphoria of creating something, where nothing previously existed. Like a mother giving birth to a child. A novel is a fictional world breathed into life by the author’s imagination. There is nothing that compares to the wonder of creation.
Finally, writing a novel serves as an un-paralleled vehicle for self-discovery. The underlying themes of the novel reflect the personality of the author. My life in the real world is mundane. I go to work, come back home, watch television, and hang out with friends on weekends. Nothing exceptional really happens. But, for the characters in my stories, all sorts of things happen. They have to survive a deadly flood, fight against a snarling dog, diffuse a bomb, jump into a moving train, dig themselves out from an underground hole, and so on. As I write these scenes, I experience the ordeals along with my characters. I see through their eyes, and feel with their heart. I laugh and cry with them. I feel their fear, joy and pain. Their reactions and emotions are indicative of my own state of mind. Writing these stories reveals to me, my fears and internal conflicts, my strengths and weaknesses, my likes and dislikes, my relationships to family and friends, my attitudes towards the world, my driving motivations and hopes for the future. Novel writing is sometimes like a free session with a psychiatrist to uncover the hidden secrets locked away in my subconscious mind. It is an effective way to truly understand what makes me tick.
I believe I have answered the question to my own satisfaction. These are enough reasons to write. Now, all days at the writing desk are not the same. On some days, writing is easy and the words flow onto the page like running water from an open tap. On other days, writing is hard, and getting any output is like trying to squeeze out the last bit of toothpaste from an empty tube. But above all, when I start creating my stories and get into the zone of writing, it is just bliss.
