Stacey DiTata is Feature Writer and Editor of Sown Seeds.
“Why Write? An Invitation To Writers”
I grew up in a word family.
Many words were spoken. Even more written.
Good words. Bad words. Big words. Quick words.
I was the youngest of three and acquired a wide vocabulary. Words were like hand-me downs. They didn’t quite fit but I used them anyway. How silly it must have sounded at age six to hear me recite the words to hippy, trippy love songs. I was too young to understand the concept but I knew the words.
Now I understand the concept but do not know the words.
Language pulls tight around me cinched with a belt, a punctuation point serving only to accentuate this gap in experience between understanding and knowing that continues to resolve.
So now, I want to write. I fumble, ask myself: Why do this? Why write?
This is the struggle for most writers, isn’t it? We know what we want to communicate but not how to do so. The best writers, it seems, are the ones who not only know how to communicate what they want, but how to communicate what they want precisely and beautifully.
Ah, but that unknowing place where oftentimes I am stuck. Possibly the most creative place to be.
Why write? Better to ask why breathe? Having air course through our lungs is a physical need. Writing is, for me, a psychological need. It transports my mind through moments of inspiration to a place where thoughts can be gathered and released on paper (or on a word document!!!) Whether the subject is politics, philosophy, education… one must respond to the flashpoint in our heads and writing gives the perfect vehicle for it. A respected colleague of mine who taught writing said, “Writing is 98% perspiration and 2% inspiration.” While I acknowledge the premise that all writing is a process of re-writing, to me, NO writing can occur unless there is an explosion of energy from inspiration that moves one through the idea, motivates the words.