Why Do You Write?

This summer I’m cleaning out the house my parents shared for almost 40 years together. The dusty work is backbreaking (and heartbreaking), but I keep finding treasures along the way.

In one box, I found college work from both my parents. I found essays, notes, folklore projects . . . And random little assignments like this one, an essay my mother wrote for English 301 at Radford University.

While Mom didn’t always call herself a “Writer,” she loved writing . . . Except when she didn’t. (And I think that sounds familiar to a lot of us.)

“On Writing,” An Essay by Jo Ann Aust Asbury

The clean, white, unmarred surface sits there waiting. The first words are often the hardest; will it be easier this time? Will you paint a picture in your reader’s mind? Will the words have color and texture?

You will be putting yourself on display, exposing your thoughts and innermost feelings to an audience. Will they care? Will they criticize? Or will they enjoy and perhaps laugh a little?

Sometimes the words come out dull and muted—drab olive greens, muddy browns, and slate grays. Sometimes instead of gliding smoothly over the page, they come in bits and pieces. The jigsaw puzzle comes together bit by painful bit; one piece fitting here, another there, some pieces never fitting anywhere.

You plod along, adding a piece here, scratching out a word there, changing and substituting and revising. Again, and again, and yet again.

Some pieces are jagged with sharp angles and corners. Putting them together needs thought and sweat, even tears. Finally the pieces fit together, lifeless words transformed into a clear image in your mind—and your reader’s mind too.

Ah, but the other times! If the mood is right, the words flow like a silver stream, smooth and effortless. Words and images form a beloved child—perfect, needing only to grow. Words jump and jabber at you, demanding you let them out.

Quick! Write it all down fast before the miracle disappears in the whirl of new words and images bouncing and jouncing along behind it. Then everything falls into place. Words that tumbled like bright leaves in the wind settle in a colorful mosaic on the white paper.

All that is left is to rake them a little, neatening your piles. Some leaves are golden, full and gleaming and just right. Others are cinnamon-brown, crisp and crackling. Red leaves glow rich and lively. Some are still green.

And when you have smoothed and raked and painted again, you have a portrait in words. Your word child, your leaf pile, your sharp-edged puzzle has grown and developed into something that gives pleasure to your readers and yourself.

Writing Prompt: Why Do You Write Again?

This short essay “On Writing” responds to a professor’s assignment. But other writers recommend a similar starting point. Natalie Goldberg, famous for Writing Down the Bones, suggests answering that question: “Why do I write?”

Answer it. Answer it in detail. Answer it again. Answer it until your answers get silly and weird. Keep going. See what surprises you; discover what hurts; see what makes you laugh.

If you’re in a dry spell, flip the question on its head. “Why DON’T I write?” Again, answer as many times as you can. Push through and keep going. No corrections, no edits, just work.

Either way, you’re writing.