Why I Write
I plagiarized the title Why I Write from Joan Didion, who had plagiarized it from George Orwell. I suspect there are hundreds of others, because it seems every writer eventually wants to tell the world why he or she writes. The book Writers on Writing* has fifty essays from fifty authors on the subject.
Joan Didion says the answer is in the sounds of the words themselves. “Why I Write” sounds much like “I, I, I”, which describes the egos of writers—all of us thinking the world is dying to hear what we have to say. But I disagree. I think an essay on “Why I Write” is never written for readers—it’s written for the writer. At least that’s how it is for me. I’m writing this essay to learn why I write.
I began my study by examining my family tree, but found no inclination to write, by anyone in any branch, so I turned to astrology.
I was born on October 1, 1942, under the sign of Libra, which I prefer of all the signs. I like the image of a strong judicial figure, weighing pros and cons to arrive at correct decisions, but that doesn’t sound very creative, so I looked at my birth date. I share it with philosopher Jean Rousseau, actors Richard Harris and Walter Matthau, and Bonnie Parker of “Bonnie and Clyde” fame. And while I found some connections (I like to philosophize, I was selected best actor in high school, and though I didn’t rob banks, I did steal a couple of cherries from Meyer’s Market when I was five). I still had no clue to why I write.
So, I re-read my volume of Phillip Lopate’s The Art of the Personal Essay—a collection of essays he considers the best, and that’s where I found my answer. Reading through them, I was reminded of how much I enjoy trying to emulate those essayists. Below, I’ve illustrated four I felt were most incisive.
G. K. Chesterton, in A Piece of Chalk, took brown paper and a box of colored chalks to a meadow to draw scenery, and had forgotten to bring a white chalk. In his anguish over the missing piece, and his search for a substitute, I was absorbed into the innocuous story of his searching for a piece of chalk, which, of course, isn’t about chalk. It’s about the man—his love of beauty, his thoughts on humanity, etc.—all presented during his frantic thoughts while searching for that chalk. That’s what I want to do.
My wife suffered from migraine headaches much of her life, and I, who never had them, didn’t understand her description of what they were like. But in her essay To Bed, Joan Didion describes it perfectly—at least she describes it in a way I can perfectly understand. The difficulty in describing a migraine, she says, is because “Migraine headaches, as anyone who has never had one can tell you, are imaginary.” They tell you, “If you would only take a couple aspirin, and take a walk in the fresh air, all would be fine.” But Joan Didion explained everything—the “aura” that precedes the pain, and the shimmering view of everything you see, and the sickness. She did it using words I already knew—the key was that she arranged those words in a way my mind understood—they enabled me to see what was in her mind. That’s what I want to do.
In the grocery store, I might be hunting for a can of green beans, when I see a can of mustard greens. I’ve never tried them, and I wonder what they would taste like. I continue looking for green beans, but my brain has now blocked everything except the taste of mustard greens. I can’t explain it, but Annie Dillard can. In her essay, On Seeing, she included an anecdote on how your brain can block out your sight—how you can’t see a large turtle, because you’re blinded by a few mosquitoes flying between you and the turtle. She explains it in a way we can all understand, and keeps us interested enough to keep reading—to learn more of her thoughts. That’s what I want to do.
H.L. Mencken, in his essay On Being an American, presents a humorous account of many things Americans have to be thankful for—with the greatest being our presidential elections: “The German elections are serious and angry, and British elections put one to sleep, but in America, we do it right! It’s the greatest show on Earth!” “It’s a giant fight between Tweedledum and Tweedledee, and it’s noisy, with much yelling and hollering and slapping each other with slapsticks in the best Vaudeville tradition. And they haul out tin cannons filled with talcum powder and blaze away at each other. It’s the greatest fun, and the best part is, it’s all free!” I’ve paraphrased his words, but you get the drift. I’ve read this account many times, and have finished laughing each time. That’s what I want to do.
So that’s why I write—to emulate those writers. I’ve even come to love writing four or five drafts, each one better than the last, trying to reach my version of perfection. And I’ve learned to love criticism. Nothing spurs me on more than reading my works to a group of writers and having them say, “Why don’t you drop the last paragraph?” or Change those two sentences around, it doesn’t make sense the way you’ve got them.” Which is almost always the answer to something I wasn’t satisfied with—but didn’t know why.
Why do I write? I write for the fun of it. And the fun of it is in explaining experiences, be they writing experiences, being distracted while looking for green beans, understanding migraines, the relationship of chalk to creativity, or seeing politics put into a context that makes sense, by observing the ridiculous.
That’s what I want to do.
Lynn Gilliland
4/19/20
Addendum: The above contains around a thousand words. What I’ve written below tells the same story, in seventy words. (I wrote it immediately after straightening a painting on the wall.)
Claude Monet began with a dab of paint on canvas that was nothing—a mess, perhaps, but nothing. But when he added a thousand more dabs of color, he had created a thing of beauty. Like Monet, I am an impressionist. I dab one word on my canvas, and eagerly search for the other thousand or thousands I deem necessary for my creation. That delightful search is why I write.
*collected essays from the New York Times
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