Why I Write
As an English teacher, I feel fortunate that I actually get paid to read and write. I have the pleasure of reading, discussing and responding to literature, as well as writing assignments, feedback, assessments, blogs and tweets. One of my students commented that my assignment instructions are sometimes as long as the expected assignment length. I prefer to think of it as practicing my craft.
I have always been an avid reader and a somewhat avid writer. I’ve intermittently kept a journal for almost 40 years. I’m sure when I was in middle school (or junior high as it was referred to “back then”) I had typical teenage angst and for some reason, I found writing as a way to relieve some emotion.
I don’t recall if someone suggested I do this, if I read about a character who did this, or if I was perhaps copying one of my older sisters who kept diaries – the small, leather hardbound book that had a clasp and a small lock and key to keep all of one’s thoughts private (perhaps especially from nosy little sisters). I never had that type of diary, so I began writing in a simple spiral bound notebook. Maybe because it wasn’t a regular recording of my daily activity, I called my practice journaling. I may have started writing to model my favorite grandmother who kept a written account of her daily activities.
In any case, once I started, it stuck because writing has always been a way for me to work through my issues. When I begin writing, I don’t know where my pen will lead me; I only am certain that by the conscious act of putting my thoughts on paper, I can begin to make better sense of them.
I still have all my filled notebooks. I rarely go back and read them, but when I do I see patterns in my life. I come a bit closer in the discovery of who I am. My writing also helps me not to take myself too seriously.
Just as I tell my students that writing is a process that is more circular than linear, writing is intertwined in my life. I write to discover who I am, to make sense of my world and my world is partially defined by the fact that I am a writer.