"Why Do You Write?" - Redux

In all honesty, I don’t write. I’m more of a man of paints and colors than of words and interesting syntax. When I was asked this question as part of an introductory assignment in my AP Literature class, I decided that the best response would be to try and tie it into my passion for painting and drawing. I felt confident in my answer that writing was more or less a way for me to express myself, similar to painting and drawing in the sense that it used visual symbols as an outlet for creative expression. Now that I am being asked to reconsider my answer for this prompt, I will admit I was feeling slightly lost as to what to say. In my time of need I turned to my friend and asked her, “Why do I write?”, purely for comedic effect. I didn’t expect her to know the answer to such a question, after all how could she? If I had no idea why I expressed my creativity through an organized set of symbols, which consisted of strangely shaped lines and points, how could I expect her to? I was pleasantly surprised to find, however, that her response to such a rhetorical question would give me valid and important insight into the underlying philosophical reason for my writing habits.

My friend, being almost as sarcastic and witty as myself, responds to my inquiry with “you write in an attempt to appear artsy and poetic so that a beatnik girl in a black beret will fall in love with you in a coffee shop that plays new age jazz.” Now clearly this is not the answer that I am going to be providing as a response to the question, however it quickly led me to the real answer. This message was humorous, and it made me smile. The scene set up a vivid picture in my mind, and an ironic one at that. It was then that I realized what kind of an effect this piece of writing had on me. The specific effect of the writing is not important, it’s the fact that it had an effect on me to begin with. This is my reason for writing- to have some sort of an effect on people. I write for expression, true, but I also write for the sheer reason of effecting others, or myself, in some way. Sometimes I want to inform people. Sometimes I want to enlighten people. Sometimes I want to entertain people. Sometimes I want nothing more than to cause one of my teachers to place a grade in their grade book for me. The bottom line- writing is the cause, and I write for effect.