Why are you a writer?

I write cathartically. If I didn't write I'd go insane and kill many orphans. Thank you.

Now your reason!

 

I write because there are always ideas pounding in my head to get out, and I like entertaining people. Also, I want to make a career in the arts when I'm older, and I figure it's never too early to practice.

 

LMFAO! I like it, keep 'em coming! lol

I just want to stop killing orphans! lol


Seriously, who can tell? Best thing for me really. It's something that I enjoy and have an interest in since young. The same with films.

I know my motivation is that I am not seeing the type of stories that I would like to read out there (unless I just haven't come across them) so I figured I might as well be the one to write them and see if people like them.

 

Hmm. it gives me sdomething enjoyable to do in my free time.

 

I write poetry because im ood at it. Im expressive, and Im good with imagery.
I write fiction for my own entertainment.

 

I just have so many idea that I want to express. Writing allows me to express them.

 

I have a selfish reason. I want to be famous.

Also I figure I have these idea's in my head, and I can apparently write fairly well. So why not write it down. It's funner than 99% of the garbage they put on tv.

 

But making movies/tv is very fun.

 

But watching most of them isn't.

 

I write because I had a story idea that was keeping me up at night. I figured if I wrote the damn story, I could finally get some sleep.

Well here it is, five years later, and the story is finally done. Unfortunately, a new story is keeping me awake at night.

I feel I might be writing forever in a vain attempt to get a good night's rest.

 

Wader has the best one so far.

 

Because if I don't write to empty my mind I go mad.

 

Because words are far better expressed when written down rather than when spoken out.

Torana

 

Because it's cheaper than going to the pub I guess.

 

It's an outlet for my creativity.

 

I write to escape into another world where nobody knows me and I can be myself in someone else's voice.

 

might as well ask why i breathe!

 

Because I have nothing better to do with my time and world of warcraft is not an option.

 

To entertain myself of course! I got so caught him in all those fantasy worlds I read about, I just had to go and create my own.

 

A talking lemon once told me that my destiny was to write.

 

I like being god......

 

What is literature? What is it not? When is a story worth the ink its written in? Your ideas on this subject are, I'm sure, closely linked with your motives for writing, which are... ?

I'd love to hear your views.

 

1. i write because i breathe...

2. to me, 'literature' is writing that is several cuts above the mean... works that can stand the test of time... as dictionary.com puts it, 'artistic writings worthy of being remembered'...

3. what is not, is all the rest...

4. a story is worth the ink it's written in, if the writer is happy with his/her effort and/or a single reader derives pleasure or gains knowledge/insight/inspiration from reading it...

5. as a philsopher, my motive for writing is to enlighten, educate, inspire, disclose unpleasant truths most would rather keep under wraps...

 

1. It's the really good stuff out there, no matter what genre. American Gods is literature. Catch 22 is literature. Pretty much any Dickens novel is literature. Occasionally, even a comic book is literature. Occasionally.

2. What is not literature is something you pick up, flash through, and put down again entirely unaffected. I'd like to list a few really good examples, but I can't think of any right now, which just goes to show how unliteratorial (I'm sure that's a word...somewhere) the examples are.

3. Considering the fact that ink isn't that expensive, and it's dubious that a story is actually going to be written in ink at all any more (Computers, typewriters, pencils, etc.), I don't really think this question has much merit.

4. I write cuz.

 

Hmm.

Maia, I beg to differ. You don't write because you breathe, nor does anyone else. What's your real reason? Is there some self-interest involved? I guess I was just hoping for an answer that wasn't so vague.

Animals breathe. Writing is a product of self-consciousness. So... why do we write? I certainly don't wish to get all sentimental about it (though I'm not saying it can be entirely pinpointed either).

I think the addition of the term "worthy of being remembered" to the definition of literature is the difference between good and bad literature. Quality, however, is surely not a prerequisite for literature, because different generations make entirely different assessments of what is worthy and unworthy.

I disagree with 4. By your logic, polemic racist writings are worthy if they please their author, and offer inspiration to a racist reader. Is self-gratification, and pleasing another reader who may be equally deluded, a valid criterion?

For 5., I think your insights could be informative and may well be educational and enlightening; but they are essentially opinions, and in a world with so many competing voices, all shouting for attention, what makes yours stand out? I'm trying to answer these questions in relation to myself too; I'm pretty bogged down in literary theory at the moment. Its hindering my writing.

Ivan, I'm sure you can be more specific than that mate. "It's the really good stuff" - why don't you write a treatise there, Sartre Jnr?

With 2, your onto something. I don't think literature should be equated with idle distraction - definitely not.

How are poetry and prose different types of literature? Is one more important than the other? If I was to say that a prominent figure once dismissed poetry as a static, passive, isolated subgenre, where a writer wallows in his own emotions, how would you respond?

Paul Valery, for instance, has a very interesting theory: prose involves the transmission of ideas whereby the words that convey them fade after the event. Like speech, language is a means, not an end. For Valery, poetry, on the other hand, is like dancing: it involves the same body parts as walking (which is utilitarian - a means to an end), but unlike walking, it is gratuitous, for the sake of it (which is a positive thing in his view). In poetry, words are no longer assumed to have their everyday values: like a bridge across a chasm, if you dwell on a word (repeat it over and over out loud), its meaning collapses.

I'm not so sure; what do you think?

[edit]
Oh, and I'd just like to add that I've read a new member's poems on this site that are particularly irritating: writing and art should not be about drowning yourself or your reader in your whirlpool of self-pity and suffering. Literature is not, or ought not to be in my view, about expressing emotion: that alone is not enough.

"You may have a grievance but [that does not mean] you have grief, and grievances are for petitions, not for poetry." 'Old School'