Why Bother?

Why do we write? The usual answer is, “Because we have to. It’s like being in labor.”

That’s true but isn’t really a reason. Why do we have to? Why is writing like labor pains?

Perhaps there are as many reasons as there are writers (there are more of us than readers one of my writer friends suspects). Some of us are driven by a character who assumes more power in our lives than our closest friends. Some are haunted by compelling stories that we have encountered or that simply appeared in our heads one day. Some perhaps feel we have something to say.

My compulsion is a crazy mishmash of all of the above. I grew up hearing that I had to write the story of my name though that never appealed. I was praised in elementary school for my way with words. Big deal. It didn’t make the other kids seek me out.

I took it up in college as an affectation and produced some truly awful stories. I tried it again in my thirties with similar results and was assured by a writing teacher that I was a disgrace to the profession. That did it for a good, long time.

Then, quite by accident, I came across a Nadine Gordimer novel on an airport news stand (what are the chances of that??) and could not stop reading until I had devoured them all. Of course she won the Nobel Prize! She laid out the history of apartheid and its demise so that its folly could be grasped by anyone. I wish I could do that for the American South, I thought.

So I tried again, and again, amassing hundreds of pages and five sort-of novels. I kept writing. Or, I should say, overwriting.

One weekend I read At the River I Stand and wanted to crawl inside its pages. Next I learned of, and even met some of the women who changed Memphis during this period. Thus began the 10-year gestation of Every City or House. My daughter died and grief gave it new dimensions.

What next? I am about halfway through the second novel in my Gordimer-inspired series and still employed in the job of my dreams. I’ve been whining about its frustrations lately, telling myself that I’m not doing what I truly want to do, finding life similar to labor pains. That will stop but an improved attitude doesn’t really answer the question.

I started this blog with the hazy thought that it could attract a community of reader-writers and that is still my hope. I have neglected it recently. That, too, will stop. Then we’ll see.