I stole this title from Joan Didion, who said she stole it from George Orwell. I liked it, because all writing is an attempt to answer a question and get closer to some knowing. I am also lousy with titles, and the difference need not be in the name only in what comes after it. My story will be different from Didion’s as her’s was different from Orwell’s, because it follows the contours of my life. And in my life, the one constant has only ever been writing.
I don’t think I ever decided to be a writer; I just picked up a pencil and began. Life has always come to me in phrases and fragments. It has been my job to try and catch them and get them onto paper without dulling the emotion...to press against the doubt that I might not write hard enough about what hurts or that the words that are screaming inside me might be tempered and less raw once they come out of me. The only truth I know about writing though is that what lives within us can never be fully realized when it reaches the light of day. It is a recognition that leaves me a little unsatisfied but still reaching for it every time I start anew.
In the early years of my life, writing was an outlet for a shy child with a big imagination that those in early education sometimes characterized as childlike and strange. But I had the gift of a rich inner life, and I knew that the places I could visit through my mind were more vibrant than what this one world could ever offer. So, I spent my childhood living in the stories and characters of my own making, and it was only natural that they would land on paper as soon as I had the faculties.
My seminal work came in kindergarten when I wrote a story called “Pets.” I am not sure it was as much a story as it was a plea for my parents to get me the dog I so desperately wanted. Nevertheless, it was recognized at the Young Authors Conference that year at my elementary school. It was the first big break in my publishing career, because it meant my book would be laminated, bound and wear a gold seal denoting its merits.
I can’t be sure whether it was the shiny seal of approval that indicated I might have some aptitude for writing or whether the page was just another world for me to escape into, but it sparked my lifelong love of language and storytelling.
It should be said though, that writing is as much a compulsion as it is a choice. I have found that if you ignore it, you do so at your own peril. I have on occasion been guilty of neglecting my work, because the fear of not getting the words just right got the better of me. But a writer is only a writer, because she makes the decision to get it all out on paper. When you ignore your truths, they don’t just go away. They sit inside you as stagnant energy just underneath your rib cage, and they will weigh you down with all the heaviness of having a boulder on your chest.
That is because we all have the undeniable need to be seen. My instrument of expression is writing. It is how I make sense of my curiosities and this messy business of what it is to be human. Then there is also the fact that I believe in the high mindedness of what it is to be a writer and that ideas have the power to change the world. I know this to be true, because I am also a reader, and I know what it is to have words lift off a page and grab a hold of your soul. It is in those moments of expressed pain, love, despair and pleasure when the words burn with such truth that something shifts inside of us with recognition.
I started this post, because I was curious why I have continued to come back to the page all these years, even when the process can be frustrating and filled with self-doubt. I wondered why some interests had been momentary bursts while writing has been persistent. In my quest to get closer to some knowing, it probably can be summed up like this: I write, because I don’t know how not to.