February 18, 2024 - February 29, 2024
I've been feeling an urge to write again. But then I hesitate and ask: Why do I want to write? I faced a similar question while deciding whether or not to quit social media, wondering why I felt an urge to share certain photos on Instagram or thoughts on Twitter. I realized that a lot of the times, it came from a place of loneliness and a desire for external validation. I don't think there's anything wrong with using social media for these purposes—because connection is awesome and humans are social creatures—but for me, I realized it was negatively affecting my mental health.
For a long time, writing served a similar purpose. It was a way for me to process different aspects of my life: generational trauma, culture and heritage, situationships, gender and sexuality. It was a way for me to narrativize my life in a neat and controlled way, a way for me to control the narrative of my life. A way for me to allow others to understand me. Now, the questions and concerns feel different. I feel different.
These reflections made me wonder what drives other people to write. So I asked four writer friends the question: Why do you write?
“I write because I’m afraid to learn who I am without writing. I’ve constructed my identity around this daily toil and need to keep going in order to keep that identity. I don’t know what it’s like to wake up and not create—I don’t want to know, either out of bravery or cowardice. I write because I’ve always written.”—Annesha Mitha (@anneshamitha on socials)
“I write because I don’t think my body would allow me to live and not write. Writing feels very much like air. If I’m not doing much of it, I feel stifled like I can’t breathe and somewhat irritable. It wasn’t always like this, but once the writing hook got into me at 11 years old, I’ve never really been able to stop (see for reference my 92 journals and thousands of poems—most of which won’t see the light of day. My gift to the world).”—Tess Congo, creator of The Healthy Writer
“Writing is the only way I’m aware of to transmit a subjective conscious experience—the illusive quality of being someone or something. And I just think that’s endlessly cool.”—Taylor Lykiardopoulos
“When I was a kid, I wrote everything down. I could always be found with a pen and a pristine piece of paper nearby because I wanted to remember everything and I wanted to do it perfectly. In the last few years, I largely stopped writing for myself. I no longer wanted to remember. As I’ve started to get back to writing, I find that it’s because I want to explore the possibility of other worlds and help create them. Whether it’s in fiction or nonfiction, I want to sort out my feelings and beliefs, to dive into the mess. I write because I want a record of myself and my people, a record of the stories that make up lives.”—Abigail Bereola
These days, I feel like I keep running into an old self. Take, for example, crocheting. The last time I crocheted, I was in high school. I remember diligently working on a hat and feeling frustrated by how slow the process was and how hard it was for me to see the stitches. The hat ended up being too big and too rectangular shaped. Now, I relish the process. I crochet a row and then take my time to count the stitches. 60. Perfect. Maybe life is just a series of two choices: doing things the same as before or doing them differently. If before I was writing for mostly external reasons, I now need to find an inner reason to keep going.
Reading what friends wrote, I realize even more that my identity as a writer is changing. When a flutter of inspiration—piles of logs bobbing along the wetlands of Highway 42—makes me want to pull over to write, I am excited to reunite with a past version of myself. But a present-future self wants to do it differently, and that feels daunting. How do I balance all these different selves and their needs? How do I re-enter writing while recognizing that I am not the same person—or writer—I was before? How can I refit my writing practices to reflect this change within?
I don't think I'll figure this out anytime soon, but maybe writing this newsletter—and doing this writing challenge—will help. If you'd like to share why you write, or have any thoughts or ideas about this topic, I'd love to hear from you in the comments or in an email reply!
Things I've enjoyed recently: Baldur's Gate 3, sunny days, textiles with waffle patterns, crochet patterns on Ravelry, and BRID by Lauren Shapiro (an excerpt below).
It felt like the truth
but now I see that as any anxious
child I longed to be alone
without myself. It sounds funny
to write it aloud. The older I get
the fewer words I need
—from “Solstice” by Lauren Shapiro