Why Write?

“This is how you do it. You sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until it’s done. It’s that easy and that hard.” – Neil Gaiman

Writing has always been something I’ve had, through the good times and the bad times in life. It’s been an outlet for my emotions and thoughts, and a way to express myself creatively. From writing pretty dark stories as a depressed teenager, to putting together blog posts about wrestling to conjure up good vibes, it’s an outlet I’ve always had, and one I’m really grateful for. I love the feeling when an idea starts to come together, and it’s all I can think about. I love the feeling of satisfaction when I finish a piece. I think when I wrote stories as a kid, that was when I first felt that I might be good at something, because I could never get enough of putting a story together. Of course, I feel very differently towards my writing these days, but it’s still something that’s enjoyable, and valuable to me.

I know when I got to my teenage years, I would write something every day. I’d go between writing light, fluffy stuff, to morbid stories where nobody got any kind of happy ending, or payoff for all the misery I would put them through. It was the latter that made me understand the way I felt at times during that period of my life. It took me a while to realise that this was my way of expressing my emotions, when I didn’t know how else to, and while I tried so hard to just shut them out, because I didn’t want to feel all the emotions I was feeling at that time.

Actually, the more I think about it, the weirder I feel those years were! I’d take literally any opportunity to just write whatever was in my mind, in whatever form I could. Sometimes I’d suddenly wake up at a stupid time like 1:00 am, full of inspiration and ideas. I’d have to frantically scrawl them down before I fell asleep again, and forgot them. I used to hate it if I had a fully formed sentence or line of dialogue that suddenly came to me! It would be a task to be able to write fast enough to get it all down on paper.

I didn’t even properly realise how much of an effect writing has had on me, mentally, until I ended up mentioning it during a counselling session, when I was about 16. I think I was simply asked what I do in my spare time, and of course, writing was the first thing I said. I opened up a little bit about my writing, and spoke all about whatever stories I was churning out at that time. The counsellor I was seeing encouraged me to keep writing, because it was my outlet. She basically told me that no matter what was going on with me, I should always get some of it written down, because it’s done me a lot of good.

So that’s what I’ve done, and it’s what I’m still doing now. Sometimes I feel caught in a paradox in that I can be an open book, and so easy to read, yet I often struggle to express myself, at least, verbally. I’m not sure if it’s because I struggle to assert myself at times, or if it’s some kind of defence mechanism, or a bit of both, but it’s strange, and it frustrates me, because it’s so contradictory. It’s something that I do want to work on, though, and it’s probably a whole other post in itself! Being able to write everything down in as much or as little detail as I need to, has been a godsend over the years, and I don’t really know what I would have done otherwise, besides an even worse mismanagement of my emotions. It’s as though getting my thoughts down on paper helps relieve some of the pressure of the build-up of my emotions, particularly while it is my only real option. That’s definitely a big part of why I set this space up for myself.

Also, being able to write stories, and create my own world, and my own rules, has been such a good escape for me, especially when I was younger. I’ve had so many moments where I have felt completely powerless in life, and just having to ride out whatever was going on in my life at the time. Having the ability to take myself off into my own world, even if it was just for a little while, and lose myself in something I made, was a massive relief through those times. It felt good as well just to have something that was mine, and mine alone. No matter what I had going on at home, at school, or wherever, nobody and nothing could take this from me. Unfortunately as a busy adult, sometimes it gets harder to be able to just vanish into those worlds, but I guess writing this can serve as a reminder to myself that I still have the escapism, and I can still use that from time to time.

I’ll end this post here, or else I could just keep rambling on! Those are just a few points about how writing makes me feel, and just how it helps me on a daily basis, near enough. What escapes and outlets do you have that help you out? Let me know!