When I was young, my mother once opened my bedroom door — where I was often banished for being badly behaved at school — to ask derisively “so you want to be a writer?”
I’d barely muttered an uncertain “yes” before she sneered “what have you ever written?”.
She didn’t wait to hear my reply, abruptly closing the door behind her.
I was only 11 at the time, but I’ve been trying to respond ever since.
Why write?
There are, according to George Orwell, 4 great motives for anyone to write, which “exist in different degrees in every writer”.
The 4 motives for writing are (and I’m paraphrasing here) 1. Because of your Ego, 2. To capture beauty, 3. To record history, and 4. For political reasons.
Yet Orwell’s list seems to me have at least one glaring omission and that is: 5. Some people write as a form of therapy.
To be clear, you cannot write trauma away. As Bessel von Der Kolk has explained, trauma exists beyond reason and logic, it is embedded in the body. Your childhood wounds are seared into your nervous system, locked into your muscles.
But telling your own story — shaping it into a coherent logical narrative — is a crucial part of the life-long struggle to soothe frayed nerves. You need to be able to assert what you know to be true with confidence and conviction.
Moreover humans are story-tellers, we’ve painted constellations on the stars, latitude and longitude over the globe, and borders across land and sea. We draw lines to make sense of our existence and the world — and what is writing but a collection of lines?
Why I write
I’m writing now because I must. Two years ago I became a father, unlocking a world of anxiety and fear — not least of all because if I’m to be a proper father to my daughter I need to learn how to parent myself. With this post I’m starting a process of discovery and recovery, which I hope may come to help others along the way.
I’m going to try to write as openly and honestly, and I will aim to revise and redraft as little as possible. This is an exercise in truth and intimacy, an effort to undo years of holding myself back and stunting my own development.
If there are other writers out there, aspiring or established, who want to follow me on this journey — I’d love your feedback and constructive criticism.
And if you’re at a similar place in life: looking to reach some as yet unexpressed authenticity, perhaps this is a journey we can take together?
