I'm about to make a confession...
I am a ... reader!
Anyone who has seen the walls of floor to ceiling books in my home will testify to the fact that this is hardly a surprising revelation. In fact, it has nearly come between me and men in my life. I simply could never have a lifetime relationship with someone who doesn't love to read. They don't need to be quite as "taken" with it as I am, but they certainly need to understand the compulsion that can send you into a bookshop on pay day only to emerge several hours later a little high on the fumes of "new book" smell, clutching your purchases (only the truly disciplined can come out with only one book) close to your chest as you hurry home (cursing traffic) and settle yourself comfortably on the sofa with a beverage and book. You emerge hours later from a world far more diverse than your own or perhaps just the same, but with Jimmy Choo's, Champagne breakfasts and an endless supply of glitz and glamour.
I don't know where my passion for books began. I suspect it started with well-read bedtime stories lovingly presented to my young and impressionable mind by parents who both loved the escapism and education offered by the written word. There truly is no lesson you cannot learn, or any destination you cannot escape to with a book! Not all passionate readers are writers and not all writers are passionate readers, but I feel sure that you cannot have one without the other in some measure... At least... I can't. For me, they're intertwined too closely to be separated.
Words have magical powers all of their own and to be able to move people with your words, is a gift. From a love of reading, often comes a desire to write, to leave something "more" behind. The desire to be a writer and to move others with your words. Almost from the minute I learnt how to recognise letters, how letters arranged and re-arranged themselves into words and the puzzle of the partnerships between the words, the magic of the written word had me totally enthralled. I wrote many stories - more bad then good, I'm sure - and then I added poetry to my repertoire. I was only 9 or 10 so you can imagine that the subject material wasn't too complex, but I loved the sense of satisfaction in completion, of conveying an emotion or image to the reader - even if it was just my Mom :-)
As time passed, I kept writing, I couldn't help it. It was an addiction of sorts. A rush if you like. I was asked once, "Why do you write?" There is no simple answer. I'm sure for everyone it's different. For me, it's something that I can't avoid, even if I wanted to (which I most certainly don't!)... You see, the words are in my head waiting. They don't know if they're destined to be part of a poem, a short story, a blog or a letter, but they're always there, whispering seductively to my subconscious. I know this because words have almost always been there when I need them... I open my mind and let them flow and there they are. As if I planned them to be 'just so' the whole time.
People write for a multitude of reasons. We write to be read. We write because we have something to say. We write to make money. We write to incite, to inspire, to apologise, to mollify, to educate or to raise awareness. Sometimes, we write simply to escape. We write for a thousand reasons, but mostly - if we're honest - we write to be heard. To leave some small part of ourselves behind.
So... I'm working on the novel. Between 1 500 - 3 000 words in a session! I'm lead by the characters in my imagination, appearing almost fully formed in the swirling words that reside there. Words that swirl and form and then disappear, only to reappear in other sentences, in other paragraphs, breeding more and more words as we go. More than 30 000 words in, I have no idea where this journey will take me. It may take me on a grand adventure or end up simply being something I've accomplished in life. Either way, the answer to the question "why do you write?" is simple for me...
...I write because I'm a writer. It's who I am, not what I do.
Until next time...
