Why Exactly Do I Write?

Writing for one to writing for Medium: My audience shift and the realizations that followed.

“So you think it’s that easy to write now, do you? Yeah, jump on WordPress, create an account, follow a few writers and publications and start typing. The whole world is waiting for your precious insight. The internet is calling for your next piece of hot prose to drop. Keep pattering the keyboard with whatever nonsense creases the thick cavities of your skull and hope that anyone is listening. Yes, it must be that easy. But first, one quick question for you: why exactly do you write?” — Inner dialogue

I finally took the plunge and decided to write for an audience. This year, I have started publishing on Medium. Over the long, weathered course of the last two and a half years, I have written primarily for myself — journaling daily in absolute obscurity. I recently wrote about that journey and explained the process in detail, extrapolating everything learned and discovered from the first million words. But now, after years of positive experiences and progress as a writer, I stand face-to-face against a tall, villainous obstacle — an audience.

The audience has multiplied the level of doubt and dichotomy that exists in my head. I try to assure myself that all writers, at one time or another, face precarious mental paths of similar nature on their way to becoming polished and published authors.

The contrast of confidence can overwhelm me: one day, I feel like the most inspiring writer on the internet; the next, a fool with incoherent sentences and words. I can finish an article and do-the-hustle (disco song) exuberantly with my emotional self as my dance partner. Other times I can scratch my head in shame and have a text sit solemnly in the draft for weeks while I decide whether I’m even fit to write anymore.

Why exactly do I write?

I have spent the last two years writing for an audience of ONE. In those two years, I rarely doubted my abilities nor my purpose as a writer. I never questioned my reason for writing or contemplated what my audience wanted to hear from me. I remained consistently on a clear path to future success in my mind. The trajectory in my abstractions was void of obstacles or confusion. Now that I have expanded and involved an actual audience, I feel I have to consider every step in the writing process. I can stare blankly at an empty page for long minutes, waiting for thought or purpose to surface. When I write for more than an audience-of-me, I demand on behalf of my readers concise clarity and coherent messaging. I find more and more pieces of writing stuck in the draft because it lacks direction or purpose. All of that is ok; they represent baby-steps in the learning stages of the writer.

But those empty pages of text bring harrowing thoughts to mind: “what exactly do I have to offer as a writer?” “What kind of authority do I have?” “Why am I even trying to tackle this topic or issue?”

The jarring reality has forced me into submission. It is time to measure up my ambitions and explore the driving forces that have led me here. I have to expand on my reasoning.

So, why exactly do I write?

1. Love of learning

Lifelong learning resides at the absolute core of my decision to write daily. In writing, I have discovered a tool that allows me to consolidate ideas and treasure experiences. In writing, I can discern my interactions with the world and expand on the engagements that take place daily. I can motivate myself to reach the furthest depths of human potential on just about any level of my life. By engaging thoughtfully with the words that get filtered onto the page, I learn more in the process. Writing motivates me to learn in magnitudes that are far greater than any other activities that I have ever interacted with. It produces an endless ignition that propels my drive to go out into the world and experience, learn, and engage with my surroundings. It also requires that I understand ideas concisely before summarizing them for the page.

2. Love of reading

I have always romanticized my love for books. Novels represent a centerpiece in my existence and purpose as an intellectual human being on Earth. I try to read prodigiously. This cherished reading habit has kindled an insatiable desire to be a writer, an aspiration that has progressively flourished in recent years. When I read, I romanticize the life of the writer. I conjure up wild fantasies of myself behind a keyboard, plotting away the characters and settings that exist in the books that hold my attention. Reading has accelerated my internal inkling to want to be a writer.

3. Love for travel and experiences

The appeal to write stems from a carnal attraction with the world of adventure and exploration. My internal clock runs on travel. A life of movement and change carries satisfaction and exhilaration into place; I don’t want to picture any other scenario. Travel and writing link swiftly together; the two bind effortlessly and feed off of each other. There is an element of traveling that brings out the romantic appeal of writing; there is an element of writing that brings out an appetite to explore and travel the world. When I write, I channel my creativity and experiences to imagine places undiscovered. When I travel and adventure, I think critically and creatively about my experiences and imagine them as prose in a book.

4. Writing represents a pure form of expression

To me, writing represents a visceral form of expression. It allows me to express and share an entire spectrum of feelings, emotions, and experiences while attaching the reader to a rich tapestry of detail and information. I feel in control with words as my toolbox, able to explain situations and experiences more vividly. It remains my favorite form of communication — more poetic and personal than videos and pictures and more concise than speech. I enjoy sharing photos of incredible landscapes with friends and family, but revealing an article or a piece of text about a place I have discovered or experienced grants me an unyielding satisfaction and pride. Writing is a pure form of expression and communication.

5. Writing offers consistent self-reflection

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.”

Anais Nin

Writing allows us to relive key moments in our lives, a process that creates a sense of deep purpose and meaning. Reliving moments helps to build vivid memories while appreciating experiences more intensely. It excites me to think about writing an experience that has taken place, sometimes reliving the moment with even more intensity and crafted reminiscence.

I started the article with a frighteningly blank page and a slight onset of writer’s block. The curse of the audience stirred some apprehension in my stomach. But through the writing process, I’ve discovered the answer to my earlier quandary, “why exactly do I write?” I can now articulate these reasons for writing to reassure myself in times of personal doubt and crisis.

If the magic of time allowed me to transpose myself to the past, I would begin to publish earlier. I am witnessing the importance of planning to write for an audience, and in retrospect, I would have extended myself more in the last years. My advice to the budding writer is to put words in front of an audience as early as possible. Figure out why you write and map out your intentions and ambitions as a writer. Only through practice can the idea of an audience change from a villainous foe to a heart-warming friend.