Why I Write Anyway
Getting a little philosophical for my second post... Thanks for being here! 💐 :*
The start of a new year always gets me thinking about things, and lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about writing. Yesterday, I was talking to a friend about this perpetual tug-of-war I have with myself — the desire to write more creatively, to write more fiction, but hardly ever picking up the pen. I write constantly for my job, but writing fiction feels like an entirely different beast.
“I just feel like I don’t have anything important to say,” I told her. “I’m a woman in my mid-twenties living in LA. I’m a dime a dozen.”
But that’s not the whole truth.
I want to write more fiction, but I’m afraid to put my work out there — to have other people read it, form opinions about it, feel things about it. (Oh, to be perceived!) And I think that fear has led me to think about a bigger question: Why do I write at all? If being read is what scares me most, then what am I actually looking for when I sit down to write?
Recently, I read a great Substack post by my former boss, Iman, about why she writes, and it really struck a chord with me. The first line reads:
“Would you still write books if there was never a guarantee that anyone would ever read them?”
It’s the same sort of question as: Would a musician still make music if no one ever listened? Would a filmmaker still make movies if no one ever watched them? Would a chef still cook if no one ever ate their food? Although I haven’t written a book, my work has been published online, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Would I still write if no one ever read my work? And why do I write in the first place?
As a kid, I used to write, draw, and hand-bind my own books with a jumble of printer paper, crayons, and staples. Of course, I made my family read them, and at that age, part of me definitely wrote for attention and praise (I’m a Leo rising, so this tracks). I liked the attention then — which is interesting, because now, I’m partly afraid of it.
But, removing the aspect of the finished product, I simply enjoyed the process of writing. I wrote because, even though I maybe didn’t understand it yet, I felt like I had stories to tell. Stories inside of me, stories in the inner crevices of my imagination, that I wanted to get out. I don’t know how or why they were planted there, but I knew writing helped release them.
I remember reading books I loved and feeling inspired by stories I knew I wanted to write someday. The earliest I remember feeling this way was in first grade, when my teacher read us The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo. Even if I didn’t quite understand it yet, my seven-year-old self knew she wanted to write something that made people feel the way that book made her feel.
As I grew older, my love for writing grew, too. I loved writing essays and arguments, short stories and scripts. I majored in English partly because, in an odd way, I felt like I owed it to my seven-year-old self. Writing was something I was told I was good at, but it was also something I genuinely enjoyed. But did I enjoy it for the recognition? Or do I enjoy it because I genuinely just do?
It’s funny, though, because at the same time, while I enjoy praise and validation for my work (I mean, who doesn’t?), I also get easily embarrassed. During writing workshops in college, I’d turn tomato-red when my peers would give me feedback or praise, especially when critiquing a work of fiction I wrote.
Now, writing as my job, it’s a bit different — yes, my writing is out there for all to see, but it isn’t necessarily pulled from the deepest parts of me. To me, that’s what fiction feels like — you’re letting someone see your imagination and how your mind works. Having people read that still scares me a little. And yet, it’s something I’ve wanted for as long as I can remember: to be an author, to tell stories.
There’s this quote I love from Dolly Alderton’s book Everything I Know About Love that reads:
“Because I am enough. My heart is enough. The stories and the sentences twisting around my mind are enough. I am fizzing and frothing and buzzing and exploding.”
I started this Substack for a few reasons, but the main one is because I want to feel more comfortable with being read. I also started it because I simply want to write more. I talked about this with my boyfriend the other day — the idea of wanting to write more creatively, but the fear of doing it — and he said, “It’s just like a muscle. The more you work it out, the easier it’ll become.”
I hope that someday, I’ll feel brave enough to publish fiction here. For now though, I’m okay with starting small — that’s how muscles grow, riiiiight?
I really enjoyed reading this post!!! 🩷🩷