Why do I Write?

The answer is Love.

It is highly unfair of people to ask writers why they write.

I, personally, cannot answer that question in a conversation. I am one of those rare silent species of humans for whom talking is not enjoyable (unless you know me well enough to get beyond my insecurities and hear me talk enough to say “shut up!”). I stumble on words. I have to think a lot. My mind races as I am aware of that bead of sweat tickling down my forehead as the questioner is waiting for an answer that I cannot express without a pen and paper. I get conscious of my pronounciation of words. My own voice sounds bad. How do you expect a writer to talk, when he is spending his life trying to communicate with written words?

So here is the answer to that nasty question—a question I ask myself everyday—in the way I like it best.

I do like to write. It feels right.

I like the way my fingers move over the keyboard. I like the sound the keys make when they are struck. I like the way I appear so busy when I am writing away. I like the way the page fills up itself as I press one button after the other; in a sequence of characters and strings that make sense to me and echo around in my head.

I like to write on paper, too. To have a choice of pens to choose from and deciding the colour of ink. Whether the pen will be a ballpoint pen, when you don’t have good quality paper a hand; or will it be a fountain pen for what you plan to write demands that special attention. Or whether you are using pencil, no, not to write, but to edit the words you have written on the page or to mark something you have read; a pencil is an invaluable companion.

I love the way my hand moves to make certain letters. The way the letter o sounds in my head as I turn my hand around all the way to carve it forever on that piece of paper in its place. The twists of the s’s where I imagine my hand is a car, driving around the mountains. Or the sharp turns I take on mountain z.

I love the pain in my wrist that occurs when I’ve been writing for some time for it reminds me that I have been at it for a while and it feels so good to release what I can, that I would barrel on through the pain to finish what I want to write.

I love the way sometimes you get so lost in your thoughts, it shows in your sentences; the sentence goes on and on and on and grows so convoluted that you forget what you started out with.

I love it when you write, you get deeper and deeper into your own self and what you started to write, a part of you, has grown beyond what you ever imagined it would be.

I love to write because the more you write the more you realise how good it is and how much you really like it. My feelings evolve and grow more intense with each written word.

I love writing.