Write Stuff

[catelin]

I've been thinking about writing over the last few days...really thinking about it. Mostly, I've been wondering about the different reasons people write, and how they write--how much or little of their own voices creep into their printed words, what motivates them. I'm not thinking so much about journaling. I can certainly understand most of the many reasons a person might journal. I'm talking about writing for an audience--poetry, fiction, essays...those sorts of things. I was discussing this with my doctor, who often writes for a living. We talked about our reasons for writing and I realized for the first time that not all of us writers go through the same process to create our stories. I think there are different types of writers and I'm trying to figure out what they might be.

I perceive myself as more of a scribe, even though I write fiction for the most part. I chronicle little pieces of people and things that shine and catch my attention somehow. I find a comfort in acknowledging the tremendous battles/losses/heroics/etc. to be found in the smallest of moments. I tell the stories of the angels that dance on the heads of pins...or at least, that's how I think of what I do. I am compelled to write, not so much as a psychological release of my demons, but as a way of reaching out and patting the universe's hand. It's corny, I know. But some of the best and most beautiful things in my life are.

So what is it, writers? What is it that makes you do what you do? How is it you perceive what your purpose in writing is? What do you like or dislike most about it? I'm so intensely curious about this now.

Comments

re: Write Stuff

[jourdannex.livejournal.com]

I think journaling can be different from writing with a purpose. I think my own writing goes through stages. I used to very often write prose/poetry and it was a way of getting emotions out, but it felt very often as if I could not carry on until I got these thoughts out of my head, as if the ink was blood, it sometimes came through me, but when I went back to look at it, it did not always feel as if I wrote it, if that makes any sense.

Somehow along the way it morphed into little anecdotes, of emotions of all shades. Maybe years down the line it will morph into something altogether different. But for now I seem to be writing different stories, about different people, or things that had happened to me. For every one tiny piece that I do post on here or in an online medium there are hundreds that I write strictly for no one but myself, because I *have* to write, it must come out or it feels like my head would explode.

Like when suddenly you shoot up in bed to write something down before you forget it at 2am. I never know what to do with it all though. So it just stays in bound books and on my computer.

I could never just sit down and force myself to write. It would never make sense. Something more likely comes over me to make do this.

I very much admire people who can create and invent characters, I do not think I could ever do something like that.

What annoys me the most about writing is having a beautiful idea, and perhaps you are driving or do not have a pen nearby and you lose that thought, and it is somehow just gone. I think that saddens me the most.

What I do like about LJ is finding so many talented people who write beautifully. And in so many different styles, but all weaving a common thread of storytelling.

Re: Write Stuff

[catelin.livejournal.com]

I'm awful at inventing characters. I usually draw from people I know, pictures I've seen...something outside of my own head. I embellish from there, but I can never just draw them out the way that some people can.