Why Do We Write?

Why Do We Write?

If I was to say that I love writing and have been doing it all my life, I would not be any different from anyone else here on Vocal. I am pretty sure that everyone here has that same love and most have either been writing all their lives, or hoping to write. There’s nothing different about me, nothing special. I am just one more writer on a platform full of writers.

That is the kind of thinking that always gets me in trouble. Maybe you, as well.

While it is true that I love writing, I can’t really say I have been doing it all my life. I started writing stories at a young age-- one of the earliest true stories I can recall writing was one that filled about 10 Hilroy books. That was a pretty good accomplishment for a little kid. I also enjoyed drawing but gave up on that early on even though I was starting to get fairly good at it.

Why?

I wanted to be the best. When I started seeing some of my friends drawing as well as or better than me, I stopped. It was all due to rather severe self-consciousness. I didn’t really put it into words at the time, but I felt that if I wasn’t the best, I wasn’t that good. Why bother drawing when someone does it better than me?

That dumb mentality stuck with me through the years, so that even though I was pretty good at writing-- good enough to be accused in high school of plagiarism because a novella that I wrote was “too good for a high schooler to have written,” according to my teacher—I started to believe the people who told me there was no future in writing. I believed when they told me I wouldn’t get anywhere.

I stopped writing for many years. My skills not only stopped developing but also deteriorated significantly.

I still continued to create in other ways, which I will discuss in another post, but actual story writing? I pretty much stopped altogether aside from maybe 2 or 3 fairly inconsequential pieces of what could probably be called fan fiction.

It has taken me a long time to come back to it. My kids are getting older and part of me says that this gives me more time, which is partly true, but it’s also because I am seeing my older son giving up on things just as I once did. I don’t want that to happen. If I am to set a good example, I need to start pursuing the things that I say I love instead of passively letting them slip away.

I never really did anything to make my parents proud. I don’t want to know that I never gave my kids a reason to be proud either. So here I am, writing again and realizing just how much time (and ability) I have lost. I am still struggling with the notion that what I am producing is not good enough and thinking I should quit.

So why am I sharing this here?

Because I have seen several Vocal creators saying similar things; they think they are not very good, or that no one will want to read their writing. That makes me sad because I don’t want to see anyone else give up on the things they love.

Everyone here has their own voice and their own stories to tell and I, for one, want to see them. I want to encourage them to keep writing and sharing.

Stories are meant to be read. Why do we write them if not to share?

I entered the Little Black Book challenge. I wasn’t really happy with my story (I would have loved 20,000 words instead of 2,000), but I submitted it anyway. For me, it was the first step back and I am glad I did it. Now I just need to continue.

So to anyone who sees this and is thinking that they don’t have what it takes to be a writer, I just want to say that if you write, you are a writer. And the world needs more writers and storytellers.

Keep going.

I am just getting started with Vocal and it will be a while before I hit my stride, but if you enjoyed reading something I wrote, perhaps you’d like to check out my profile to check out my other stuff.