Why Do I Write?

It is not the first time that I answer this question here on Vocal, but this time I will do it in a much more detailed version. Before we start, feel free to read my interview about writing:

Because it became a habit over the years. During my childhood writing was the way to deal with my loneliness, my escape from reality. And in some ways nothing has changed. I like to entertain the world, without being the centre of attention. And over the years I learned how extraordinary our languages are and it is great fun to experiment within its boundaries. The entertaining part of it, is still the main reason. However, more and more I also want to educate people about our society and the depth of human psyche.

I know, links are always some kind of a disturbance, but since Mike Singleton asked this question and this will be my answer to him, I should allow you to check his answer to the very same question. (And if you haven't done it yet, feel free to subscribe to him as well, he deserves it!)

Why am I writing? Everytime I hear this question it makes me nervous. Each and every time, it takes me back to my childhood, and nobody wants to return to that, especially not me. And, that's kinda funny, every time I get asked that question, I kinda ask myself the same, normally because I am stuck in a story.

The most given answer by me over the years: Because I had no choice. As much as it is the truth, it also is a lie. It is something between and for a long time, something that made me feel uncomfortable.

At the beginning

Yes, it became a habit and started at a time where it was the only thing to keep me sane.

I was locked away in my room, accompanied by my toys. And since I grew up in the international film industry, I invented my own "films", created a small movie set with lego or playmobil and invented the stories with it. While being locked away ("house arrest" for six month, nowadays illegal in Germany) I started to write those film stories down. Doing it, helped me to escape my loneliness.

After this first long lockdown of my life was lifted, I started to write the song lyrics for the songs of my band. Once in a while, I also wrote short stories, but my main interest were the lyrics. Over the years, I used it to escape my miserable life, gave my dreams a poetic home. Writing was my way to express my feelings.

During this first decade, my focus changed towards becoming a bestselling author, most likely because poetry (and lyrics are poetry) is called a dead genre and there was no way to finance my life with just that.

I started to send my stories to publishers and got rejected for different reasons and that encouraged my wish of getting better and most of all, I wanted to show them, that they made a mistake by rejecting me.

The Downfall and its solution

Around the year 2001, I had left my adoptive parent's house, moved in with my biological father for a few months, then moved in with my biological mum for about half a year. Finally, I got my own apartment in Hamburg and suddenly faced financial problems. A Writer's Block stopped me from writing the stories I wanted. So my hope, being the next Stephen King and getting some good additional money by writing was out of sight.

At the same time, I learned about the pornographic magazines and they constantly looked for new short stories about... I guess you know about what.

As smart as I was, I gave it a try, wrote such a porno and sent it to one of the magazines and got accepted. For the next months I wrote a lot of those stories. My Writer's Block never kicked in when it was about writing porn. So I made some good money with it. On the one side I was happy about writing stories my (adoptive) family would hate. On the other side, it felt like a fall from grace to my bestselling ambitions.

For the first and only time in my life I wrote for money.

The End?

I wrote about 100 porn stories, then it started to bore me. Each story was the same. Between one and two paragraphs of a storyline, that would lead to sex. The next 10-20 paragraphs would be just sex and then, one or two sentence to end the story.

It became boring to me and I stopped writing it. During that time I tried to write "normal" stories, but they failed after a few sentences. The Writer's Block was damn loyal.

Since I no more wanted to write porn, the members of my band and me had problems to figure out how our sound should be and started to fall apart, writing lyrics was no option anymore.

It was the end of my dream and I gave up.

The new beginning

I met Jean, my ex-fiance. And I wanted to write something for him, so I did and it worked again. Slowly, my Writer's Block gave in. A German platform for hobby authors (a bit like vocal) entered my life, since I was looking for German books (while living in Mauritius) and inspired me to write more and more. And of course, I met a German publisher and finally got some of my stories published.

I wrote to create content, at least at the beginning. With the sudden success in my back I started to change my writing purpose. Suddenly I had a great fun in entertaining my readers. More and more they became the reason why I write.

However, there always had been a life-long ambition to become better and figure out some new opportunities within everything I did. And writing made no difference. I started to play with words, tried to create my very own style. Playing around with the meanings of words became a hobby.

Just when the nature started to fall apart and the Nazis decided to rise again, I used my writing to bring attention to some of the most important topics. Suddenly I started to teach my readers while entertaining them. As an author we are a person of public interest and as such, we have to speak out for those who can't do it themselves.

The future?

I absolutely love what I am doing right now and I hope, it will last till I take my last breath.

My personal interests never changed, but they more often find their way into my writing. Instead of living different lives and careers, as I did over the years, I start to unite everything. I still hear the negative voices somewhere at the back of my mind, but they get weaker and weaker with every book I publish.

Thanks for reading! If you have questions, feel free to ask me.