Why I Read, Why I Write

 

 

 

Why I read and Why I Write

 

Reading is like breath to me. A necessity. A doorway.  I began reading early. As soon as the letters turned into words and stories I dove into books. The truth is, I read nearly everything, from the daily newspaper to the back of the cereal box if there isn’t something better to read. I read because I have a curious soul; I want to know, to learn, to understand. 

Through the written word I can enter a magical place, a place where I can almost transform myself into someone else; where I could see with new eyes and hear with new ears—almost. I know that I cannot truly see through others eyes because my own particular shades will color the view, however slightly. I read anyway.

I read to understand myself. And in that wordy mirror I am find new ways and angles to view my own experience.  Sometimes that experience is twisted like a fun house mirror. Sometimes I am surprised to find my reflection in a story seemingly far removed from my own.  Sometimes the writer shocks me with the realization that it indeed my own face staring back at me.

Ellie Wiesel is one such writer; the book was Night.  That book rocked me to the core. I had thought I could read about his experiences in Auschwitz without danger of seeing myself in the story. I was wrong. His writing pulled me in to the camp. It was I who lay there wishing my father would just shut up already, hating myself at the same time because my need to survive outweighed, if only for a moment, my love for my father and my humanity. Gone was the smugness and unspoken judgment of those who had perpetrated these crimes against humanity. Now I was not sure I would not have turned in my neighbor, or that I would not have been Sieg Heil-ing with the rest of the German populace. I wept.

I expect the writers I read to honor a simple contract. To be true to the story they are telling. To not rely on tricks, emotional chain pulling or a twisty ending. I expect the writer to treat the reader with respect. I do not like writers who talk down to me. I want the writer to invest the characters with a spark of life, something that makes them more than a cardboard cut-out.

There are some kinds of stories I will not read. I will not read erotica—it is boring. I once went through the supermarket and cracked open random “romance” novels and read the sex scenes; they were remarkably similar. Sex is not what interests me in romance. What interest me is everything else in the romance formula: how two different people can overcome the things that separate them and find harmony together. I will not read gratuitous violence—stories that exist only to provoke fear and dread. The real world is scary enough.

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Why do I write? I have been asking this question of myself this week. Or rather, I have asked these variations: Why do I think I can write? Why do I say it I am a writer when I have not been putting in the hours of hard work to sculpt the inchoate stories that I twist and turn in my brain while I lie in bed waiting for sleep?

I went to the SCBWI Carolinas Fall Conference last weekend. My last night I sat amid a group of working writers. One of them asked me if I was not lying to myself about my intentions because my reality was that I was not putting in the time every day to write. Her words gave me pause. Why was I self-sabotaging my stated goals? Fear? Fear that I am not a skilled enough writer to accomplish my dreams? Avoidance? Laziness? I am sure there is truth in all of these reasons.

A good analogy is my garden. I have an imaginary garden—it favors the English gardens of the multitude of Merchant-Ivory and BBC productions I have watched, with flowers everywhere waiting to be cut and tastefully arranged in white ceramic vases in the sitting room. The reason why this garden remains mostly imagined? To paraphrase Lizzy Bennett it is because I have not taken the trouble to actually pull the dang weeds. It takes effort, concerted effort over time. Just like writing.   

Consider this essay my shrive, my rededication to the craft.  

Which brings me back to the question: Why do I write? I write to be heard and understood. I write to express the stories welling up inside me, words that I hope will have the power to create an empathetic response in the reader.  I write with the knowledge that the more I write the better I will hone my craft. I write not to impose my view on the reader, but to share it with the reader, leaving enough space for the reader to find an independent interpretation.  

I write to entertain, but not as an end to itself. I want there to be meat on the bones, not a club to beat readers over the head with; no preaching allowed. I want to elicit genuine emotions—no tears jerked from eyes unearned. I want my reader to leave my story feeling they have gained something from the time and energy expended reading my story. I want my stories to find as wide a readership as possible, without compromising my own voice or perspective.

This is what I expect from myself as a reader and a writer. As I continue to devour books and struggle to create my own, I will keep these words in my mind, remembering that there are no shortcuts on this path I have chosen.