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Back in high school, I told my mom that I want to write books. Why?! she asked me. After several minutes of making my pitch while she asked me pointed questions, it boiled down to, well, because I want to. Yes, Momsie, of course I'll be a nurse, because it is loftier and gives job security and it pays the bills much more regularly than being a writer. Mom always did win.
And here I am now, after almost forty-eight years of a most lofty and satisfying career as a nurse, still wanting to be a writer when I grow up. Why?! I can imagine my mom's voice..
*Because it is a need. It is basic. Like eating and sleeping. Because. I went on to study nursing and have worked in many capacities, but I've not stopped writing. I have written for my own amusement, to reach into my mind and sort my thoughts out. I write when I need a relief valve while emotional. I filled up journals and legal pads and emptied pens because I tend to be emotional. Good thing I have a fireplace to chuck them all in.
My earliest written piece was a list of character profiles of teachers as animals. I wrote it for fun. It wasn't meant for anyone else to read but me. Miss Quenco the crow--it was her black hair and big nose. Miss Exija the cat--nothing ever daunted her. Mrs. Montanez the crab--she would walk side-to-side while teaching our lessons, and I shouldn't have done that because she was a cousin. It was Mr. Ventura the pigeon (how appropriate I realized later) who saw my notebook and sent me to Monseignor Lucas the water buffalo's office. Yeah. Grandma got called in to inform her of my after-school detention, my need to go to Confession, and her need to enforce discipline at home. My punishment? I had to come straight home after detention --- one hour after school for a week! -- and I was not allowed to play outside. And, she bought me a journal but I was to keep it in my room. Now before you criticize a wise grandmother like mine for that purchase, she saw my need to let off steam by writing. I was ten.
*Because of ego. It's true! Writers are egotistic. As Eric Blair, aka George Orwell, once said, and I paraphrase, writers want to look clever and be talked about even after their death. By the ex who said one couldn't write a grocery list much less a book, by the stuck-up clique at school, by the now-adult bullies and smartasses that made one's childhood miserable. Writers want to be accepted into that list unlike any other list which include the best writers through the ages. Imagine your name rubbing elbows with Sigrid Undset or Laura Hillenbrand or Shakespeare. Even if one's name isn't all that famous. Or not published (yet). I admit it, ego is in there.
*Because I love to read a good story. It doesn't have to be a "saga", it just need to be good. I think the most beautiful thing about a good book is being engrossed in it and being a part of it. One does not mind reading that book again. I have a list of thrice-read books which include To Kill a Mockingbird and The Silmarillion.
Conversely the worst thing about a badly-written badly-edited book is being stuck in it. I am one of those who, even when the book stinks, must keep reading it just in case it got better, and three-fourths of the way I would be in agony. There have been books I simply cannot finish or get into. Even those not inclined to write will say "I can do better".
If books got written and edited well to begin with, there would be few new writers.
*Because it closes chapters in life. Jane Austen wrote Persuasion as a means to work out a relationship in her past and provide the happy ending she didn't have. Writing is like a second chance, or a better chance. It corrects regrets, it pardons bad choices. It makes one face personal truths, or even expose one's misconceptions. It's like writing a fanfic of one's own life.
*Because one has a world view to express. I'm hard-pressed to find a book that didn't have a world view. Writers wouldn't write the warnings against dystopian society in every dystopian literature -- take your pick. My favorites are Brave New World and 1984 -- or even the sadness in Sylvia Plath's poetry or the worst-case scenarios of Michael Crichton. Writers have their world views. Even Dr. Seuss has a world view. Read Green Eggs and Ham!
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