Why I Write
Cheryl Joi Mosley -- October 25, 2007
Vladimir Nabokov once wrote, "The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible." If I could only think of something to say then those clamoring words would be released and, for me, there will finally be a sense of relief. After all, the words are a huge part of me. The words come from me and create a feeling -- power, sadness, lust, madness -- and I am part of it.
There is a sense of fright and exhilaration at the same time. All the commotion in my head begins to quiet and become very still. Enveloped in a deep silence I try to imagine how I will fill the first page and the pages that will follow. "How could I possibly think I could write?" I curse the day I decided to pick up a pen and consider myself a writer. I question whether I have any talent, knowledge, or skill. If I can create just one good first line the rest will be simple, right? Unsurprisingly, the page remains blank.
I give up, throwing down my pen, crumpling up the paper and cursing my elusive muse for once again abandoning me when I need her the most. Staring at the crumpled piece of paper, as if out of a mist, the ideas arise in my head. I pick up my pen, smooth out the paper and watch in awe as my hand begins its work. Ideas come so feverishly that I begin to wonder if they were hiding inside my pen. I write furiously and my eyes strain to read what my hand has just written. As my eyes focus I can just make out a word or two... it is becoming clearer now... ah yes, a beautiful first line. Now I can begin.
This is the heart-wrenching process I go through every time I attempt to write. Why does a person do this? Why do I have this intense lust in my body and brain to write? I have pondered (of course, while I am supposed to be writing) why the need to put words together courses through my veins. Words penetrate me and stay within me until I can no longer endure holding them in and they spill out onto the page. When I write, I feel an automatic connection with the world around me. Suddenly I am standing in the midst of the great authors of our time: Milton, Shakespeare, Baldwin, Morrison. They and I are one: one art, one love, one body moving across the page. I have apprenticed myself to these great writers and through their work I learn how to craft my own.
When I sit down to write I am suddenly thrust into a world of millions of writers who know the beautiful yet at times torturous craft that we pursue. We all find an excuse to create, but for a writer (if I dare call myself such), to write is to be somewhat mad. It is an insane ritual that takes much out of me and replenishes me at the same time. For years man has searched for the elusive fountain of youth. I have a secret: I have found it! It is the art of writing. I sit before a blank page and choose one word, followed by another, followed by still another and soon I am floating towards heaven. When I at last come back to earth and the writing is finished, I am rejuvenated. I am reborn through the writing of words.
Why do I take myself through this time and time again? Perhaps to leave my mark on the world to prove that I was here. Perhaps because I have nothing better to do with my time. The real answer is because I have to write. The moment I allow my stream of consciousness to flow onto a page, so begins the mystery of writing for me and I must solve that mystery no matter what. I must see it to completion. I have to know how it is going to end. I have an inexhaustible amount of words in me and I need to get them outside of me and onto a page so that I may see them in a way other than dancing inside my head.
The art of writing is not a new craft. Yet the magnificence of it is the opportunity to write and leave an indelible mark for those who come after we are gone. To have the opportunity to see the words bump into one another like a toddler learning to walk for the first time. I put it down on the page and it becomes part of the world, a living, breathing thing. It is alive and no longer just an intricate part of me.
My work may or may not be shown to someone else, but there is a need to get it down on the page. For me, writing is not so much about others reading it or about accolades from others. I write because I think that that is how I reach my heart, that is how I reach my innermost thoughts and feelings. Manipulating words gives me a sense of power. When I write I am able to be in control. No one can tell me what to or not to say.
Just as I use writing, as a purging of my soul onto paper, writing uses me to offer itself up to the world. I am the conduit through which the words are born. It is my contribution of beauty to the world. If my writing is nothing else, it is mine. My personal Frankenstein on paper. It is my mark, my calling card, my voice in a world of many voices.