Why do I write?

Most of what I write is work related, emails and reports. In both the writer needs to convey as much information as possible, using simple language and in a way that is easy to comprehend. Every superfluous word detracts from an effective email or technical report.

Emails especially need to be positive, upbeat and free of unnecessary emotion. It’s important to make the reader feel positive about what he reads. You are selling your idea and the pitch needs to be right.

In City Tech I discovered the joy of writing. One multiple occasions I have been so pleasantly surprised by the euphoric high that I get after working on a piece for a few hours. It seems counterintuitive that something so satisfying is both legal and moral. The catch however is that I have to really push myself to react that moment of catharsis, but when I get there, I am so light that it’s as if I am flying over the world looking down, at peace with myself as new ideas bounce around like a steel sphere in a pinball machine. These moments I cherish despite my avoidance of the effort required to achieve them.

Good writing demands discipline, as does any skill or art form. I balk at the restraints imposed upon me by structure but I must admit to its effectiveness. I would like to just fling words at the canvas in a frenzy of spontaneity but as somebody suggested to me recently, I should start by way of spontaneity and finish by way of structure in a second sitting. Who can argue with that?

I believe that a pleasure shared is a pleasure doubled. In my moments of literary euphoria I could not escape the thought that writing could benefit so many people. My thought went to those imprisoned in various institutions around the United States. Would not writing be an effective remedial therapy that could bring them joy and a positive attitude to themselves and their surroundings.

I would like to finish with Pablo Picasso’s  “The Persistence of Memory” painted in 1931. Even though we know that this painting is illogical, it talks to us at a subconscious and irrational level.I think that effective writing also needs to talk to us at a subconscious level, appealing to us, without our understanding why.

We seem to write everyday. You text others on your mobile devices, you write a letter to your family when you are on a trip, you write a blogging post on Facebook or Twitter, these all can be considered as a type of writings. If you are going to ask me about the reason why I write, my answer will be for happiness. Everyone may have a bad time in the daily life, sometimes they may try to find someone and complain about it, but fact is that in order to deliver your story  clearly, you may use a lot of descriptive words in it but no one would always like to listen to you with patient, but your pen you use for writing doesn’t. You can have you pen to work with you like always and express all the thoughts vividly with the descriptive language you use, there will be a chance people feel interested in your works and try to understand what you try to deliver to them. And more importantly, you may develop a better mood after.

Writing can make you feel happy, it’s not without a reason. There might be things in the world you couldn’t change, such as bad weather, heavy traffic, people’s misunderstandings, you feel bad about this and cannot complain these through your mouth, you might be choose to write instead at this moment. As the words flow under the nib of your pen, all things seem to be controllable and were stated out clearly on the paper. At this time, you will use a different attitude to judge these things. The paper will always be patient and record your thinking. You can just take your time and do your critical thinking. This is also the right timing for you to develop your own thoughts for this case. After you will definitely feel satisfied for the results.

Beside helping you to build your own thinking, writing can also be a good tool for you to communicate with others. Many people thought writing was just the way to record your own thinking, but that was not true, writing can also be the bridge to connect you and others. I still remember that writing used to be my good tool to keep in touch with my friends and my teachers when I was studying in high school. As an immigrant without any English background, I often feel frustrated for not able to talk to people here and understand what was told in class. At that time, my sister suggested me to write to my friends and teachers and talk a little with them about it, then I started my time of writing. A month later, I realized that writing was such an amazing thing to do when you get bored and have no one to listen to you. As you know, when you try to talk to someone, in order to deliver your own thoughts to them, you have to construct your words wisely and clearly in order to deliver you message to them. However, you might not be a professional speaker, and you might mess it up on constructing your sentences because it’s impromptu. That was the things always happen to me. My teachers and my friends sometimes don’t understand what I said, the tool I used to solve this problem at the moment was writing. For example, I will send an email to my teachers in class, because there is no time limit, I can slowly construct my sentences with the use of descriptive language in order to state my thoughts clearly so the teachers can understand what I am trying to tell them. I am so happy that this is really working for me, I quickly build up the bridge with my teachers, they are happy to listen to me through the email and try their best to help me solving the problems I have, and I can keep on track in class again with the help of writings.

You never know how much writings can help you, not only building connections with others, but also can spread your thoughts widely. You can deliver your thought to several people by saying out through your mouth, but if you are a good writers, your writings can deliver your thoughts to thousands of people. Such as a french fiction writer named Jules Verne, he wrote many scientific novels which clearly expressed his ideas of some future products which inspired many people in the world at the old time. I still remember the things he stated in his work, “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea”, all those advanced technology really surprised me and keep my curiosity on continue chasing his ideas on the future. Imagine if he just told the story verbally but without writing it down, there will be less people can hear his creative ideas now and we may not understand his ideas that well since changes are always occur when people try to transfer the data verbally.

Writing is like a opened gate to help you to explore yourself and the world. Sometimes I will write a little to record the best moments in my life. Every time I write, I feel like it’s another chance for me to rethink about the things I’ve done or what was actually happening in the world, I can write slowly and construct a proper structure, and then gently put my experiences and ideas in certain area of my writings. The writings make me think again and again as the time I write, and sometimes there will be some creative ideas coming up which I feel so happy about it. Writing really works for building your thoughts and help you to chase for happiness.

If you are asking me about a thing we can do to relax ourselves which cost less and we will be happy about it, I will tell you it’s writing without any hesitations. You write, you think, you can also deliver your thoughts to other people and your writing may bring small changes to the world we have for now. And all you need to achieve this goal is just a pen and a piece of paper, so why not writing?

Why do I write? Well, to be quite frank, there are multiple reasons as to why I write. Now if I may be one hundred percent honest without judgment, I write mainly because it is a ‘requirement’ to advance academically. I find writing to not be one of my personal interests. I happen to consistently wonder off into space whenever I am writing or even reading. It seems as though writing to many people is to free one’s thoughts, convey a message to someone, or to even improve language or complex use of vocabulary. Although I honestly do not like writing, I have learned to accept the reality of it and I have learned that even if I do not like writing that in doing so there are indirectly other perks to it. For example, when I am writing it translates to me building better structure when speaking. Instead of speaking on a topic in a fast pace, I find it easier to speak with more relevance to whatever it is that I have to say. Another perk will be that when writing study notes for a test it is more likely you’ll remember whatever it is written because instead of just mentally reading it, you are also physically partaking in writing which increases the chances of you remembering what was written/said rather than what was just said. Considering I struggle with tests at times, this seems to be very useful. Now, I know it seems more logical for reading to influence writing. However, when writing I have found the significance towards re-reading my work. This is because most of the time the first draft of an essay or writing assignment is usually all scrambled with full of ideas all over the place. Hence why re-reading your work is important to me because when doing so, you find errors in structure, vocabulary, punctuation, and content. This can lead to better writing skills and then when it comes to reading? It’ll be a piece of cake because you can read the story with the acknowledgment of structure and content and as a result better understand the story.

Why Write:

Writing, is for me, a way to express myself. I can put down on paper what I would love to say out loud, but it may come off as an insult or something unbecoming. I use writing as a way to escape this world and travel to unreal places. Places that I can go to without judgement and  rejection. Where I can be a hero or make up one that looks like me and can be accepted by the character’s heroic acts. With writing, I can jot down all of my thoughts in tangled sentences without  worry about punctuation, and grammatical errors.

Writing is a way for me to express, and open myself in a vulnerable way to myself. I think writing helps you to know yourself better.With writing I can see my thoughts on paper. I can tell what kind of story teller I’am. If  I’am  writing for my own eyes, I can tap deep within myself and give my dark inner thoughts words that it can use for me to see just how dark I can be and to make peace with myself. Writing gives me that best friend that is way better than my best friend. If I have something to say I can always count on a pen or pencil and paper to jot down my immediate thoughts. Writing never has to be “called over” because writing is just my thoughts that I can put down on paper.

Writing also helps me sort through ideas that I may have for a project. Sometimes writing helps me put my priorities in order. I really love to write, but mostly I love writing on my own terms more. I hate having to be force to write, especially if it is on a project for a class about a topic that is boring.

I believe that writing opens the door to imagination. For me, I like to think up different worlds or monsters in my head and write them down on paper. I love that freedom that writing gives to me. Writing will always be my mistress. I will always have love for it. Writing will always be a part of my life that I will hold dear.

So, to sum up why I write, I write because it is the only thing that is purely me. I love doing it and it keeps me in check with myself. It lets me look back on myself. Like when I was younger I kept a diary, now, I can look back and see my thoughts on things when I was younger and see how I think differently about them now. Writing is my friend, my enemy, my lover, and my life. Because of all these things is the reason why I write.

Why do I write? The question itself sounds like “why do I read? or listen to music?”
Writing has always been a release of the thoughts in my mind that aren’t the same if just spoken, an urge when I am inspired; it feels as though there’s an overflow of words rushing to the paper sometimes. I’ve been writing personally and freely since the 5th grade, when I was introduced to the world of literature, after getting lost in the different lives and worlds of books and after I had read and collected enough Junie B. Jones stories to come to the conclusion that I desperately wanted to write my own!

During the designated free writing time given to us after recess for 10 minutes, I felt the most freedom just recollecting my thoughts in my notebook. I remember once recollecting my morning in a free write and I wrote, “The sun spilled like orange juice over my pillow and onto my ruffled bedsheets”. I didn’t think much of it but my teacher loved this sentence so much! I can also still recall the sweaty palms and hand aches induced by my excitement to get all my words and short stories down. My first ever hand written chapter book was a science fiction novel about a group of gifted seniors in high school who got together every New Year’s Eve to stop the sun from scorching the planet. They’d all been born with the same supernatural power to blow extremely strong winds that cool off the Sun’s surface! I went on to write dozens of short stories; some related to mystery, action, and even some from the perspective of fictional slave characters during the late 1700’s, as this was the grade I first learned about the slave trade that shaped America.

Today, I’ve written myself out of some of the darkest places in my life. From loss, heartbreak or even the happiest days of my life, my reflection and expression through writing has given me strength to not only push forward but inspire others. I believe this is also why I aim to be an English teacher; to help others reach inside for stories and words that already exist in them. To write is to share from within and create worlds, animals, people of all colors and shapes… all with just the ink in your pen or the lead in a pencil. Writing is an editable journey in which we delve into the depths of our creativity and piece together something meaningful and from the soul. I write because I am inspired, but I also write to inspire, and writing is sort of a never-ending chain of influence in this way.