I like the section, so I decided to write my own.
Unfortunately, I was never able to find out how to go about submitting to P&W, so this was quickly forgotten about. It's probably in need of a few rounds of editing and re-writes, but once my queries fell on deaf ears, I didn't see the point.
Anyway, here it is, completely untouched since I churned it out:
My father
once compared my writing to softball.
More specifically, he likened the writing that I do to the softball that
he plays.
It was
towards the end of dinner, and I think I could actually hear my wife biting her
tongue. I don’t write for a living. Writing, for me, has all the outward
appearances of a hobby, not unlike my father playing softball in the 65+ “silver
league.” On paper, I suppose he had a
point, or at least something that closely resembled a point to him.
The most
obvious rebuttal was to ask him if he was still trying to make it into the
Majors, if he was still waiting to get that call to “the show.” Because while my father has always played
softball in his free time – something he has quite a bit more off these days –
it’s not as if he’s hoping these softball games turn into something greater;
it’s not as if he’s hoping to be discovered by a scout, or offered a Major
League contract on the spot. He’s not
trying to catch someone’s eye with his bat or glove.
That is, of
course, exactly what I’m doing. It’s
what I’m doing every time I send a story out.
It’s what I’m doing every time I go online and interact with people,
leaving a link to my web site at the end of every conversation. It’s what I’m doing right now as I compose
this column for Poets & Writers. I
love writing, but there’s always a practical element to it that creeps in.
Still, this
is a logical argument to make. It is not,
however, why my wife was biting her tongue, or why my cousin, an aspiring
writer herself, was aghast at my father’s comparison. Because to anyone who writes, or anyone close
to someone who writes, the suggestion that it is in someway comparable to
recreational sports is incomprehensible.
My dad
plays softball for exercise and comradery, both of which he could get
elsewhere. There is no replacement for
writing.
My father also
plays softball because it’s fun for him, because he enjoys it. I would hazard a guess that his entire team
feels the same way, and that his entire league would also agree. I would also hazard a guess that every single
writer, successful or not, has had moments when writing isn’t just not fun, it’s painful. For all the good that comes of it, writing
has a tendency to hurt us.
Yet we keep
doing it.
Every other
month, when I get my latest issue of P&W, I invariable go directly to the
“Why We Write” column. I do so out of
morbid curiosity, like watching a nature show about salmon. I always enjoy the column, but can’t help but
be left with the feeling that each author is either very good at fooling
themselves or completely insane.
When I was
little, writing was a way of focusing my overactive imagination. My stories were scribbled on tiny notepads
and mostly featured imaginary adventures of comic book characters.
When I was in high school, it was a
way of giving myself the illusion of control.
I could be anyone in these stories.
My Smith Carona word processor gave me the power to be a vigilante, to
fight ogres and trolls, and, more often than not, to actually have sex.
When I was in college, it was about
challenging the status quo. It was about
saying “fuck” a lot and attacking religion and any other long established
institutions that presented themselves.
In graduate school, it was some
strange attempt at saying something new about “the human condition.” I had big, bold feelings, and I was sure that
they were important, that they said something profound that would surely affect
others.
In my 20’s, it was about finding
some strange and unusual subject matter than no one else had touched. Warehouse party on the bad side of town? I was there.
Homeless man on the street corner?
I’d spend an hour talking to him.
People had to know what was going on, and they had to know it through my
eyes.
At some point, it even became about
telling good stories.
At any
given point in my life, had you asked me why I wrote, you would have gotten a
different answer, if I was even self- aware enough to go beyond “because I have
to.” But how is that possible, that my
reason for writing would change so much?
Do our reasons for doing anything else change like that?
But those
weren’t reasons; they were justifications.
I took something amorphous and shaped it how I needed it to be shaped at
that specific time in my life; it filled whatever void I had at that time – and
without me even realizing it.
That’s the
one, constant thread that has run through each year of my writing life: I don’t
know what I’m doing while I do it.
Perhaps, at some point in the future, I’ll be able to make some vague generalization
about it, but I’ll never truly understand it.
I will never be able to define it.
I don’t
know what’s going to come out when I sit down to write. Sure, I can start with a reference point, be
it beginning, middle, or end, but I don’t know where any of it will lead. I don’t know where it’s coming from and I
don’t know why, I just know that it is.
I consider
writing to be part of the journey, and if I ever arrive at the destination than
there will be no point in continuing to travel.
Coming to a conclusion in writing is like coming to the conclusion of
life and you don’t get to do it anymore.
If you’ve found enlightenment, if you’ve figured out why we’re here, if
you met your higher power, than you no longer keep looking, you no longer keep
asking. You no longer write.
Why do I
write? I have no idea, which is exactly
why I do.
