Lilith Saintcrow

Big question for the week. Why on earth do we do what we do? More to the point, I’ve been talking about craft a lot lately and not so much about the whys and wherefores. And this morning, while slogging away on the treadmill, I started thinking about why we write.

Bear in mind I’m philosophical today.

A long while ago, a book leapt off a shelf at me. It was Julia Cameron’s The Right To Write. I found a great deal of value in Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, so I picked up this book and promptly forgot about it.

You see, despite the immediate shock when I saw the title, I did not believe I had the right to write.

I grew up in a household that did not cherish the creative. I grew up in a household where nothing was cherished but my ability to be what was needed, whether it was a dishwasher or a yard worker–not to mention punching bag or black sheep. I didn’t like sports (especially not violent sports) and I wasn’t fond of the television. Instead, I liked to read–and that was just the first difference seized on by my parents as proof that I was somehow “less”.

I was shiftless. Lazy. Head in the clouds. A dreamer. Never going to amount to anything. (I could be “anything I wanted to be”, of course–as long as I wanted to be what they wanted me to be.) I was “book-smart but real stupid.” I had to get my head out of those books. Books were torn up. I was “grounded from reading” many times–yeah, right. I just slipped books into my backpack and took them to school.

You can’t stop a kid from reading. At least, not when that kid is determined and has access to a kindly librarian and a school library. There is a special place in whatever Heaven there is reserved entirely for librarians who save kids’ souls.

When I started writing, it was war on the writing as well as on me. I had to constantly find new hiding places for my journals. If I wrote a story, the story was about my parents (even if it wasn’t), and they punished me for it. If I dared to write something critical about the latest beating I received, I was punished again.

I got very good at hiding my notebooks. Even today I squirrel them through the house, and I write in code. I cannot stand anyone looking over my shoulder while I write, and I cannot stand anyone peeking at a work in progress on my laptop. The kids and the Muffin honor that little quirk of mine.

But I still wrote. I wrote because I had to. It was write or die. I still feel very much that the writing was my way of reserving pieces of myself against an enemy who did not just want my physical submission, but wanted to break the essential me. I can’t express the extent to which I felt (and still feel) that. (It’s probably why I identify with Jane Eyre so much.) I had to write because to do otherwise was to say that they were right, that I was worthless and fit only to be a beast of burden and a whipping-girl.

When I got older and moved out, the idea that I had to hide my writing was compulsive, to say the least. I did it very much with the feeling that I was doing something not exactly shameful but certainly not fit for public consumption.

The biggest thing I felt when I moved out was relief. I could put a book on the kitchen counter and leave it there if I so pleased, because nobody would throw it out, rip it up, or hit me repeatedly with it because I had “made a mess”. Not only that, but I could write without the heart-in-mouth fear of being discovered and forced to hand over my notebook so someone could read it and punish me for something in it.

That fear sometimes strikes at odd times, only now it’s fuel. Fear, anger, guilt–all these things make great fuel for writing. Sometimes I’m writing because I was told I could never make it at this artsy shit. Sometimes I’m writing because I have to get these things out of me or they will poison me. As a coping mechanism, writing is completely awesome.

Nowadays, of course, I also write because I have deadlines. I view writing very much as a socially-acceptable illness, a sort of tic that I have parlayed into a career by dint of sheer hard work. After all, if you are going to be doing this anyway, you might as well get good enough at it to earn some cash. Kids gotta be fed, after all.

In short, there are multiple reasons why I write. I don’t know what the initial impetus was, but writing was a way very early on for me to reserve pieces of myself, and has grown into something as necessary as food or air. Your reasons for doing this thing are probably quite different. But I want to express something to you, whoever you are and whatever your reasons for writing are.

You have a right to write.

It took me six months to pick up the courage to read that book. Several times during it I broke down crying. It is a very large thing, when the transgression you have been committing all your life turns out to be something you had a perfect right–every right in the world–to do in the first place. It is a terrifying relief. It removes one reason for writing (let’s be honest, part of it is a sheer “fuck-you” that keeps you on the page) and gives you equally valid but sometimes not as righteous reasons.

It is one thing to write because I am thumbing my nose at all those voices from my childhood telling me I am stupid and worthless and will never amount to anything. It is another thing to write because I have an inherent right to, because I want to, because I want to make a living at it. The former is reactive, the latter is an active statement.

It is easier to be reactive than active. It is easier to feel righteous and violated, and to use that as fuel. It’s harder to write because you say, “Look, I want to do this and I am going to make it doing this.” I find the latter to be much harder work, because I’m not depending on anyone else to give me reasons for writing.

The impetus is solely on me.

In the end it doesn’t matter why you write. What matters is showing up consistently on the page. It matters that you know you have a right to it. Whatever reason you pick is fine.

Writing for me is a lifeline. It is proof every day that I did not break, proof every day that I am strong enough. It is the thing that keeps me whole. It is what I was meant and made to do, just like a cheetah was made to run or mountains were made to stand. It is where I drew my battle line in the sand and declared I would not be moved.

No matter what your reasons are, you have a right to write. Do not let anyone tell you otherwise. If you have to hide your writing the way I did, I am so sorry–but believe me when I tell you there will be a day when you do not have to hide.

And on that day, let me welcome you into the sunlight. It’s warmer out here, and the air is a little sweeter. It may feel a bit bright at first, and you may blink a little, and the stinging in your eyes may be tears.

But your eyes will adjust, and out here you can run and play and sing as much as you want. Lots more room. And every inch of it belongs to you and me. We can roam wherever we want.

Come on. *winks mischievously* Let’s play.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 17th, 2008 at 12:38 pm and is filed under Deep Thoughts, Writing (About). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.