Why I Write: A laundry list of reasons

Last week, Talk of the Nation broadcasted a show entitled “What's The Story? Writers Reveal Why They Write.” Substitute host Tony Cox talked to published authors ZZ Packer, Siobhan Fallon, and Ralph Eubanks about their motivation to write.

I listened to it on podcast while I was out running over the weekend and asked myself the same question. Why do I write? I’m not the author of a published book, like the guests whom Tony Cox interviewed, but I’ve devoted my career to writing. At this point I have a weekly presence in the Boston Globe, a monthly column in my local newspaper, a quarterly set of profiles in an alumni magazine. I’m ghost-writing a book about inspirational NFL players; I blog daily; I have corporate clients that include a medical website, a municipal management consultant, and a computer security company; and I’m hoping to see my memoir about running with my son published at some point in the not-too-distant future.

So my initial response to the question Cox posed to his guests and I posed to myself was simply this: “Because it’s the only thing I really know how to do.”

The only thing I really know how to do? I pondered that as I ran. The intuitive response struck me by turns as flippant, plaintive, authentic, dismissive, and ultimately accurate. Okay, maybe not the only thing. I know how to make banana bread and – and some other things that I can’t seem to bring to mind right now.

But mostly I know how to write, within certain parameters. I know how to write the kind of things that I get paid for. I know what the Globe expects in a feature story, what the Concord Academy Magazine looks for in an alumni profile, what it takes to describe varicose veins or liposuction in five hundred words or less. I know how to paraphrase an NFL player and how to bullet-point the key factors in cybertheft. I know how to write the things my clients want written. And I don’t know how to do much else that constitutes paying work, so I write.

But of course, I also write a blog, and most likely no one will ever pay me to do that. And I write one thousand words or more in my journal every day; that’s no paying gig. I wrote a book, not knowing whether or not I’d find a publisher for it. So there are other reasons I write besides pay.

I write because putting the words on paper – or, more literally, on screen – is better than listening to the voices in my head. They stop talking to me when I write down what they have to say.

I write because it gets people to tell me their thoughts and experiences. As a journalist, I can ask questions that wouldn’t go over so well at a cocktail party.

I write because it gives me an excuse to pursue answers to my questions. What is a school’s obligation to helping students manage food allergies? How did the community react when a theater teacher decided to stage a musical about gay families? Why did a pediatrician who was facing a comfortable retirement instead decide to open an orphanage in southeast Asia? What motivates someone to devote her career to legislation against human trafficking? I wrote each of these articles because I felt compelled to find out.

I write because once I describe how I feel, other people tell me they feel the same way, and it’s less lonely for all of us.

I write because it provides such a reliable conversation starter at parties and other big get-togethers.

I write when I’m sure of something.

I write when I’m ambivalent about something.

I write to say I was wrong.

I write to insist I was right.

But ultimately, I write because at this point I can’t imagine not writing. I’ve forgotten where ideas go when they are not recorded. I find words, though usually not very good ones, to anchor reality.

Most of the Talk of the Nation guests said writing was hard for them. They didn’t say how hard not writing would be for them. They are all more accomplished writers than I am, but I’m guessing it would be nearly impossible. We write because the words come from inside of us and need somewhere to go. We give them the destination they scramble for. We take them from our heads and make them stand in line and then proceed single file.

And then, for a moment or two, we’ve created order from chaos, simply by writing.