Why I Write 1

 

WHY I WRITE

EVEN IF NO ONE READS IT

(Part 1 of 2)

“No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.”

(Samuel Johnson 1709-1784)

Don’t know original source of “I write to find out what I think”. First heard it from MASH creator Larry Gelbart. Have seen the saying attributed to Stephen King and others. In any case, it is very often what I do. Case in point, what you are about to read – if I can con you into reading it with this scathingly brilliant introduction.

As told to youngest son, then a would-be 5^th grade teacher, I really first learned to write in the fifth grade. As with most things in my life, it was learned by mistake. Got into a lot of trouble, even one of few times my father was really mad. In trouble mostly because of how my sentences were structured (okay, did figure that out too late).

By the eight grade the teacher told whole class I had real talent. And, a few high school teachers and some professors agreed. Even our most beloved daughter, the smartest of the bunch, says she can always tell when daddy wrote it.

Over the years tried to earn actual money writing, mostly in Christian publications. Can say I’m a ‘published writer’, but they don’t pay nothing. Most ‘successful’ writing gig were the 350+ unpaid blogs for Brazil Times website.

Putting it in print, paid or not, carries a certain level of risk. In 1974 I attended a writers seminar in Cincinnati. Something said by editor-in-chief stayed with me, and may be more true now than then: “Once what you write is published, it is out there forever, it can never be taken back. Years and study will always make you better informed than on the day you wrote that thing; but none of that will show up in the mind of a reader finding it some years hence.” This was before stuff went out on the Internet.

So, guess I do write well enough for what I got paid. If anyone takes serious what I write, or is offended by it, they got what they paid for. In the end, though, I will never be a ‘good’ writer because I’ve never been a good reader. Most of what I write comes from things I’ve seen, heard, experienced. As my sister the teacher tells me, it’s just the way my brain is wired. This observation, however, is that good readers make good writers because good readers have a bigger world from which to draw.

Nowadays I try to write as if everybody on earth will read it; but content if at least my kids do. If you’re reading this you are probably one of my actual or adopted kids, grandkids, or other long-suffering family member.

MY MOTIVATIONS

First and foremost, there is always more to every story. I write to find out how much of that story I actually know.

Obsessive, compulsive need to be the “rabble-rouser” who forces thought and discussion among those whose life experiences tell a different part of the story.

To warn the past is always prologue. Because ignorance of the past has always led to ignorance of the future.

To sort out what I hear on YouTube and TV machine from what I only believed because of stuff previously found credible from source I liked.

To write what no one wants to hear, so that they will have to defend what they believe without relying totally on who taught it to them.

Sometimes it’s about putting things in writing so somebody will know it happened, or at least passed through my mind.

To be read. Believing it’s worth reading is the vanity of becoming doddering old man.

It’s only ‘art’ I’m any good at:

If a tree falls and no one knows it, does it not make a sound?

If an artist creates their art and no one knows it, is it not art?

Let’s face it, I’ve got nothing much else to do now that MASH went off air.

To be continued….