I like writing, too

This post is in response to this: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/10/16/why-i-write-joan-didion/

Reading "Why I Write" made me so happy. I completely relate to what she wrote, word for word.

A couple months ago I read something similar to this, but it was in a book (Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami). The main character also expressed her need to write to figure out everything in her life, what she thought and how she felt. At this point I instantly connected with a character I previously did not understand, or even like. Now that this is the second time I've heard this desire/need to write, I am wondering if it isn't such a rare thing after all. Although I am fairly certain that most people I know don't go home and write multiple-page long word documents trying to figure out why they are so darn sad sometimes.

I have done this for longer than I can remember. My mom told me she has saved up pages and pages of me scribbling out reasons why I hate my brother, or prewritten speeches to friends, apologizing for how I may have wronged them. This summer I actually compiled all of my rants, they could be found in nearly every notebook I own. They aren't always negative, sometimes they're really uplifting, in times I found it necessary to inspire myself.

I also used to write a lot of stories, and they were all clearly really about me, just with a different name. Sometimes they would entail what I was going through at the time, sometimes it would be an older version of myself, trying to figure out what I wanted.

I didn't really realize what this was until I saw it written, it truly is just me, trying to sort through what is going through my head. From time to time, I just start thinking too fast and I can't really reason with myself until I can put it on paper. When I reread it, everything makes a lot more sense. Writing is certainly a therapy for me.

Originally, I thought I wanted to be a journalist because I really loved writing. That is certainly not true anymore. Journalistic writing makes me very sad, specifically hard news. The very concept of it is to strip it of every element that I love so much about writing. I am not saying it doesn't have its place, news writing certainly has to exist, I just don't want to have any part of it.

What she said about grammar has a lot to do with it. Everything is so meticulous, even down to sentence structure. I think the way you write a sentence can have a great impact on what you are trying to say, but after seeing all of the red on my first news story, it was clear that there isn't much freedom of expression in hard news writing.

I did much better in writing feature-type pieces for the news writing class. The only thing I actually enjoyed writing was the personal profile. I got to give life to a person on page, something I have been doing for a very long time, as opposed to describing a convenience store robbery in as few words as possible.

Even if I am not going to choose writing as a career (I don't have a long enough attention span to be a novelist) I can still continue to write, because in the end, I am not really writing for anyone else, I am writing for me.