Why Do You Do It?

The Worst question to Ask Anyone About Their Profession.

Why do you do it? I hate this question. Recently, my boss at my bill-paying job asked every employee to answer this played-out and frankly lazy query. For my bill-paying job, the answer is easy: “I gotta pay bills.” For my writing, it’s much harder to answer.

I can’t say that I write because it pays my bills because, dude*, it definitely doesn’t. I don’t write to impress either, hence my lack of flourish, large fancy words, or overall output. I guess the simple answer to why I write would be: I need to.

When I say, “I need to”, what I mean is that if I don’t write, I become anxious and deeply uncomfortable. When I’m not writing, I can’t sleep well. My thoughts go to what I should be writing, and I begin to chastise myself for being lazy and unproductive. This last year I didn’t write much at all, and it made me absolutely miserable (my father slowly dying didn’t help either). I feel as though I’m letting people down, even though I don’t necessarily write for anyone in particular. It feels like drowning when I can’t write.

My non-existent cabal of ravines vampiric readers, who can only be satiated by my particular brand of writing, haunt my waking hours, their bloated bellies protruding as they watch me with flies in their eyes while rich white women walk among them with camera crews, begging for others to donate a cup of coffee’s worth of money to feed them.**

Wow… That last sentence was a very heavy-handed metaphor that I may have thought was clever while I was writing it but am embarrassed by it now. I’m keeping it in though so deal with it. Look at the keyboard monkey dance!

What I’m trying to express is that I don’t write for fame, financial gain, or to impress, but I wouldn’t turn any of those things down either. I write because it’s an almost physical need for me to create something that will outlast me, even if no one else reads it or cares. Don’t get me wrong, I want to be read. I want to be remembered for making something that caused a reaction, even if it was boredom.

I’m hoping that someday, someone many generations removed will read something I wrote and, whether they love it or hate it, will know that I was here. I lived, loved, and created. My writing is a version of a time capsule, waiting to be uncovered by future generations. That’s why I write.

Thanks for reading.

~David

*Note: I was raised in the 80’s and 90’s. “Dude” is a universal moniker for any human on earth, regardless of sexual orientation, just like “Brah” a few years ago, and whatever the current generation uses to address their peers.

**That’s a run-on sentence that would make Stephen King proud.