Why do we write?
Well?
When you’re a writer, it’s only natural to sometimes ask yourself why. It’s even more natural to decide to quit an get a better job, so why we don’t do that is another good question. It’s pretty much universally accepted that the world would be a much better place if ninety percent of all writers were thrown into the sea, and yet something drives us to ignore not only our own happiness, but the wellbeing of the entire human race, and go on writing stupid words by the million.
So, why do we do it? Here are a few reasons.
We are incredibly lonely. Writers are strange and awkward people who make others uneasy and sad when they’re around. I long ago lost count of all the friends I don’t have, and the fact that it is almost impossible for anyone to spend five minutes in my company without feeling a rising sense of nausea and a certainty that they have an urgent appointment to get to is a big reason why I became a writer. This is the case for the majority of other writers - the only writers who aren’t lonely are literally psychopaths and on police watchlists. But writing makes us feel less lonely, because we can pretend the people we’re writing about are our friends. We can also make friends with other writers, because even though all writers hate all other writers, we are willing to swallow our disgust for the sake of the injection of unjustified self-esteem gained from pretending we’re part of a special community.
We have no other useful skills. As a rule, writers know that it would be better to do literally any other job, but they also know that they can’t, because they’re terrible at everything. Going into writing is the only option for most of us, because we have no other marketable skills. In fact, we don’t even have any non-marketable skills. Take me, for example: not only can I not change a tyre or create a spreadsheet, I can’t even whistle. In 99% of cases, if a writer didn’t choose that career, they would starve to death within days. Of course, in at least 50% of cases, writers do starve to death within days, but you increase your odds a little. The simple fact is, we have to write, because we are not good at anything else. The fact that we are mostly also not good at writing is irrelevant, because being a writer is one of those great jobs where ability has no correlation with success.
We hate ourselves. This will be news to nobody: everyone else hates us, and we are objectively loathsome, so if we didn’t hate ourselves it would be quite surprising. The fact is that every writer grows up knowing instinctively that they are a bad person, and you cannot separate that fact from their decision, as adults, to pursue a profession that is going to make them supremely unhappy. We know we deserve this unhappiness, so we chase it as hard as we can.
We are very stupid. Besides having no useful skills, a writer also has a brain that doesn’t work properly. You can usually tell this by reading their work, but our stupidity doesn’t only affect our writing, it affects all our decisions, including the stupidest one of all: to become a writer.
We got too much praise as children. Most children are lucky enough to be subjected to copious verbal abuse. This prepares them for the realities of life and gives them the kind of grounding that a person needs if they are going to be a productive member of society. On the other hand, some children are praised and told that they are good, which gives them the kind of grounding that a person needs if they are going to be a writer. When we were young, adults would constantly tell us that we were clever and talented, and this did untold damage to our psyches. It’s even worse if the adults specifically tell us that we are good at writing: they might as well be severing our brain stem. If you don’t want your children to grow up to be writers - and believe me, you don’t - avoid complimenting them at all costs. It’s too late for my parents, whose lives are forever blighted by the knowledge that their idiotic interventions are to blame for the misery they now endure.
We own a computer. There is a computer right here in front of me. It’s like handing a drug addict a crack pipe.
We were cursed by a murderous demon. If you’ve seen The Nun or The Nun II, you’ll know how it goes: an evil demonic entity from the nether realms gets a mortal in its clutches and delights in the exquisite torture and corruption of their soul. A 1996 study of over 20,000 writers from around the world found that 19,925 of them had been entrapped by one of Hell’s many lords of wickedness, and were therefore doomed to write for all eternity.
The chicks. It’s always the chicks, man.
I enjoyed this post, thank you.