I must share this post from: Ronna Detrick* post 1/28/24
A few days ago, someone asked, “Why do you write?”
“I write because it is the space in which I feel most creative, most challenged, and most compelling. Here on the page—whether with paper and pen or document and flashing cursor—all that swirls within me finally finds a place to land.
“I write because at least for those minutes and sometimes hours, I feel calm and sane.
“I write because the craft of choosing particular, perfect words and then deleting them in favor of others thrills me. To realize that paragraph five is really paragraph two, that the sentence with which I started is actually my ending, that seemingly disparate threads can weave themselves together under my care, time, and attention; this is delight beyond compare.
“I write because it feels like—no—is the place in which I am capable and strong, wise and certain, powerful and alive.
“I write to name what is true. When my words—my words—show up on paper or pristine screen, what I have written cannot be argued, diminished, or erased even by me.
“I write because it is a space that is bigger than me. All I hear is “yes.” All of me is allowed. My tears, my rage, my fantasies, my frustrations, my desires, my doubts, my big and brilliant thoughts, my expansive heart, my heartbreak, my strong love. There is no one I have to convince or cajole, no one for whom I have to dumb myself down, no one who can’t handle me. It is rare. It is respite that restores.
“I write because somehow, no matter how much pours forth, there is always more.
“I write because it is the felt and known-with-certainty place in which I discover the discrepancies between who I really am and who I sometimes become; between the me who stays strong, soars high, loves boldly, speaks honestly . . . and the me who struggles with every bit of this more often than I care to admit.
“I write because it brings me back to myself—over and over again. My writing stands tall, bows low, and winks mischievously; it opens its arms, draws me in, holds me tight, promises me everything, and always delivers. It is home.
“I write because it feels like a miracle. It is a miracle: creating something from nothing, speaking words and ideas and thoughts and emotions into being, building entire worlds, deconstructing other ones, finding myself again and again, holding on, hoping still, and letter by letter, word by word, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, page by page remembering that this is what changes everything.”
How about you: Why do you write?
*Ronna Detrick is a colleague from my She Writes Press family.
