Don't think it odd, when you read all this, that I blogged a lot on Christmas Day. After all, I don't celebrate Christmas, and to the extent that I celebrate proverbial Christmas, proverbial Christmas came early this year-- in early November to be exact-- although the bulk of the gift will remain unwrapped for another few weeks, a predicament that Jon Stewart captures brilliantly:
Speaking of the Daily Show, please watch this moving tribute:
But I digress, from why I write. I write because I'm a writer. Whether I'm a good writer is immaterial; I'm not saying I'm not-- after all, you're still here. I write because that's how I process the world. For that reason, I may as well write skillfully-- just like I may as well cook skillfully, since I like to eat.
I only kind of knew that this is what I was doing. I mean, I had to, because in many situations, I couldn't wait to write about what I'd just seen, done, experienced. Writing about Nicaragua kept me sane throughout my summer there; writing about Russia kept me objective; writing about my mom keeps me whole.
It really hit me, though, when I read it in someone else's, i.e. Wendy Wasserstein's, words. She was writing about a communist-era trip to Romania--she was chaperoning a school trip for her niece--during which her notebooks were confiscated, and she couldn't imagine living with the restrictions on the artists and writers who lived there. After all, writing is the way she processes the world.
I've also sensed this, in a different way, in writers who find themselves writing to process tragedy in their own lives, such as Joan Didion and Mariane Pearl, and just recently Roger Rosenblatt. I sense that they don't have a choice, even if they don't want to share. Writing is what they do.
So you write well, or as best you can. At work, I have to write well to minimize confusion, and work, for the reader. Not at work, I write as well as I know how, because it's how I process the world, so I'd hate to be misunderstood.
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