A Manifesto
Whenever I have serious doubts about my work or am bogged down with feelings of inadequacy, of not being a good enough writer, I ask myself the question, why write. This is my spontaneous answer, it’s what grounds me, brings me back to what’s important, to a place where I can start again…
I write because I discovered I could, because after years of looking for ways to express my creativity, without ever feeling whole, I finally found what it was I could best do. What it was I wanted to do.
I write to connect with the world, to reflect the lives of people who live on the margins, who others might think unimportant.
I write to make myself whole, to disappear in the act of writing, to lose myself completely, so that time passes unnoticed.
I write to spend time in other worlds that fascinate me.
I write because I get my own room with books and flowers.
I write because I love reading and words and I love polishing my words over and over.
I write because then I am never lonely.
I write to give purpose to my life.
I write because now I have to, I must, it has become an essential part of who I am.
I write because it brings me great joy and takes me to many places.
I note there is nothing here about writing for success or publication!
Why do you write?
Answer the question spontaneously as I did, then make it your manifesto. Copy it up, print it out and put it somewhere prominent. Don’t lose touch with what it is you love about writing.
Writing is not life, but I think that sometimes it can be a way back to life.
― Stephen King, On Writing
I don’t know why I write, only that I do. I can’t attribute any positive or negative outcomes to the activity. I’m no happier doing it or not doing it, I can project meaning onto it, or consider it it the most futlie of jestures, and yet neither are objectively true. I just do write, and for periods I just don’t write, and then, for no reason I can fathom I write again.
Good to hear from you – your view is always interesting. By the way in April Wendy and I are running a short, (4 weeks) short story course at the library be good to see you there.
Great, and timely for me. Last year’s work is a collection of short stories and some tips for the final edit would be useful. This year, an epic novel is underway, the main challenge, to write something beyond the commodified, sanitised exercise in comprehension and appeasement the form has become. Can the novel be as subversive and compactly-potent as the short story? That’s the question I have set myself.
Great – see you there Avril