Pajiba

I agree wholeheartedly that writing is a release. I almost always write for myself unless I'm forced to for something at work. I majored in journalism and ultimately became a reporter for a few newspapers before I gave that up to do what I'm doing now (completely unrelated field). What I realized is that when I was writing news stories, I rarely enjoyed them unless I was able to make a personal connection to it. Since that was so rare, I tried another career path and before long, I started a blog to use as a creative outlet and I realized how much I still like writing.

That's long winded but I agree with your sentiment here. The best writing is always personal.

The young mariner looked out into the stormy sea with terror and delight. Wave upon breaking wave of angry ocean were crashing against the long, barnacled hull of the British frigate, pounding with the same force as the boy’s heart against his ribcage. His breath came in gusts as cold and strong as the gale winds blew, and he could no longer distinguish the howling of the tempest from the sound of blood rushing through his veins. He gripped tightly to the hempen rope that balanced him, but he felt no fear that the mighty, heaving ship could toss him into the abysmal waters below. The storm could not kill the boy; his purpose was too great, not even the sea could steal it from him.

The strong, young lad and his crewmates had been at sea for weeks hunting the villainous pirates of The Lusty Maid. The British naval men had chased the thieves across seven salty seas, and were closing in at last when the old whore suddenly veered into the heart of a great, black squall. The wisdom was certainly to wait out the storm and resume the chase when the ocean had settled, but the captain of the boy’s ship was resolved to the contrary – wisdom be damned. The horrible pirate ship had been terrorizing British shipping lanes for months, laying waste to one ship after another and razing to the ground any port that did not meet their lascivious desires. Survivors cried of a crew that was made up entirely of red-eyed devils, brigands and murderers; and the infamous pirate captain was renowned for being the most sinful man on the seven seas. In the last two years, word of their awful deeds had spread across the empire like a terrible plague, and horror gripped the hearts of anyone who bore witness to the sight of the vessel’s patched, yellow sails crawling up over the back of the horizon. The young man’s ship, The Jack Aubrey, had orders to both capture the pirate-ship and bring its crew of marauders to justice, or to deliver it eternally unto Davy Jones. The boy’s captain cried out for the men to remain strong in the face of their fears, but his words were empty: the crew of The Jack Aubrey knew already they would either return as valiant, conquering heroes, or meet death in the embrace of swirling, bloody ocean.

Though the feeling of dread that had been brewing in the bellies of the crew since their grand departure from port was finally ready to boil over, the young mariner felt only manic delight for the approaching conflict. His peers may have suffered many long and lonely nights staring at the stars with dread and uncertainty, but the young mariner had waited his whole life for this moment and it would not be soured. For fifteen years he’d planned for the day when he would finally face off against his hated enemy: the vile captain of The Lusty Maid, the slayer of men and defiler of women -- Captain Rutherford McCall! The boy was not more than a pup the last time he laid eyes on the foul countenance of the villain, and although he might’ve forgotten the curve of his chin, the color of his eyes and the contours of his cheek, he could not forget the horrible misery the scoundrel was responsible for. In weaker moments his head implored his heart to seek respite from his hellish path, to abandon revenge and divert into a life of peace; but the stubborn, bloody muscle refused to forget its mission of vengeance, and steered the ship of his soul ever onward. Although the storm might soon drag both ships beneath the sea, into the darkness of the depths, and through gates of perdition, the boy knew that nothing could stop his mission of murder.

Another wave crashed against the ship beneath the young mariner and threw cold ocean spray in his face. He tossed his jacket aside, pushed the wet hair out of his eyes and steeled himself against the cool, stinging pinpricks of the icy rain. As the two ships sailed into each other’s wake, the boy put one leg upon the railing and tested the halyard that steadied him with one firm tug. He shifted his boot and tried to ignore the discomfort of the stiletto dagger that was tucked along his heel. His strong hand drew forth from its scabbard his cold, steel infantry saber, a long blade he’d adorned with a fine, golden thread of rope. His fingers wrapped around it as tightly as a vice so the moisture of the rain and ocean would not wash it from his hand. He stole a glance at the third weapon that was holstered at his side, a rare and valuable Scottish flintlock pistol that would serve his vengeance best. Though his skill with a blade was exceptional, the gun was his favored weapon and he intended to save its single, iron bullet for the gut of his nemesis. Before the storm was through, he would see the sulfurous flash of this gun muffled in the belly of Captain McFall.

He braced himself for the cannonade.

I write because I love it, first and foremost. The art of the written word is sadly a dying thing. I'd like to at least try and keep it alive even if it's only on a personal level.
Honestly though, I think the main reason I write is to learn about myself. There are kernels of truth that come out in the depths of a writing binge that you would absolutely never think of in the living world. Those little bits of information are sometimes your subconscious at its most honest.
Right now I'm about forty pages into something with no idea where it's going to go. It will probably find a place in a box somewhere, but that doesn't change anything about how good it feels to put thoughts to paper.

Because I think I am really funny...so far my mom and I are the only ones.

On a slightly more serious note, last year I found myself divorced, living with my parents and jobless. My mind had to go somewhere before I lost it completely so I started writing it all down. That has turned into a blog more or less so friends and family will stop asking me, "Are you okay...Are you sure...Do you want to talk about it'''"

It has helped shut everyone up considerably.

To enjoy myself. I enjoy writing because it gives me something to do and invent. I love receiving responses to pieces whether positive or negative. It's fun to hear different thoughts and why people feel such ways. It's a great feeling to get information out that otherwise would be overlooked.

I write short stories for some podcasts, I once wrote for a website, I write articles for a sort of magazine, and was just asked to write for a newsletter. I'm also working on a book. It sure isn't for the money. No money is paid for these things, and I don't lose any writing them.

That is a very good question. I was just thinking that myself.

I don't write. Because I am lazy, that's why.

blackbird, great quote - I totally agree.

I also think that I write most for the sense of connection it gives me. Whether it's here or on my blog or wherever, putting myself out there makes me feel connected to a larger world. By writing, I make myself part of the dialogue.

I began because a teacher said I was good and encouraged me to continue; up till then, nobody had ever said I was good at anything.

I've continued first because it's still the only thing anyone's ever said I'm good at--nearly 30 years later--and secondly because it's the only thing I've ever found that keeps me sane and functional.

I've been writing since I was a kid and I kept journals to express all the feelings I couldn't say. I've always enjoyed writing and had an easier time expressing myself that way than by speaking. To this day, if there is something really important I need to get across to someone close to me, I will often write rather than speak.

I've been lucky along the road of life to be encouraged and allowed to publish a few small things here and there. As with any form of expression, when I manage to connect with other people, it feels good.

Now please, let us never speak of this again.

Imagination helps drive what I write when I write fiction. When a story comes to me, it's like a movie playing and when I write I'm describing what I 'see.'

If that makes any sense.

I've started a new story to take a break from more serious fictional works. A salacious Christmas party at a lesbian bar that features one girl dipped in fondant as a dessert platter.

I write to educate. Since I have an odd knack of being interested in subjects few others seem to be, I collect what I've learned and stick that info into non-fiction books. The hope is that what I learned can be passed along to others.

I have one book published (for which I somehow managed to get reviewed in the Wall Street Journal and then do 70 interviews on local and national radio programs across the US and Canada), a second awaiting to be published, and a third in the process of being written.

That said, I really wanted to be a screenwriter. But 10+ years of banging my head against the Hollywood door to get inside proved worthless - no matter how many times a script of mine placed in a national screenwriting contest. My wife kept telling me to write a book "using that stuff you know." Damned if she wasn't right. I'd urge every other aspiring screenwriter on this site to follow suit - write a book, screw Hollywood.

I write because these characters will pop into my head and won't stop talking and acting out different scenes until I get their stories out. (Or it's schizophenia.)

I finished my first novel during NaNoWriMo in '09. It was extremely hard, but one of my proudest accomplishments.

I have stories my parents saved from when I was 7. One was about the time I met Duran Duran and we hung out after their concert. I was writing fanfic before I even knew what that meant.

I write predominantly short, performance based poetry. I do this because I honestly enjoy performing.

More so, however, I choose to write poems and performance pieces that try to capture the lives and struggle of those who seem forgotten by society. The addicts, the aging punks, the sell out hippies. Everyone thats on the fringe but not the cool, risky fringe that gets books and movies written about them. More the sad, melancholy, unexciting fringe that gets side stepped because one of their number hasnt appeared on Oprah yet.

Those are the people I try to capture with my work.

That said, I maintain a blog because Im a self absorbed hipster asshole and think people should care about my day to day activities. So there are two answers to the question, I guess.

I write because it's unbearable that this beautiful life will only ever be mine.

Why is Stephenie Myers' cat angry?

I write for a lot of reasons: because there are words in me that need to get out, because I want people to tell me what I have to say is clever, and because maybe some day someone will read what I have to say and feel something.

I find it intensely satisfying to write. I'm a tough critic (I delete more comments than I post), but to me there are very few things more rewarding than to create something and be proud of it, no matter the medium.

I write because I feel compelled to. When I'm inspired, I have to get the ideas or images out. I have something to say or to show and I feel this need to put it out there.

I don't even know if I "write" shit.

Me, I like to hork up little rant-like paragraphs that inevitably whirl off into an absurdity apropos of only God-knows-what. Granted, the rants on Pajiba'll start out referencing the actual subject matter of the article/column, but in the end? I've never really looked at any of my comments on here as "writing."

Facebook, on the other hand? That goddam timesuck provided the ways and means of cracking open the floodgate between my brain and fingertips. I see that blank square with the blinking cursor and everything goes blurry until I hit "Share." Once in a while, I'll scroll way, way down just to see what the what was, and nine times out of ten, I'll wonder "Where the fuck did that come from?"

Although, in regards to Pajiba as a "community" - since becoming active in the comment threads, I've become more aware of the way I write. And I blame that one the savviness and intelligence of both the regular contributors and commenters.

You're all a bunch of well-read motherfuckers, and you give me the hope that maybe somebody'll read something I write and think "Huh - that fucker ain't as dumb as his internet handle sounds." And for that, I thank you.

Except for Conrad.

Because he's a cocksucker, that's why.

I think Pajiba Love featured the site "Why We Write" three years ago during the writer's strike. I think it was there that I found the most apt reason for why I write. "I write because I like having written." (http://whywewriteseries.wordpress.com/)

Seriously though, writing is what I'm trying to do as a job if it weren't for this pesky "life" thing getting in the way. That's why I'm really grateful to Pajiba. I am a person who enjoys movies, but what Pajiba showed me was that sometimes, the review can be better than the movie itself. I'm also grateful to Pajiba and AlabamaPink and Prisco for CBR because before I started doing it, I was at a standstill at my life. CBR made me read for fun again, and by forcing us to write reviews, it made me think about the words I put down to paper/screen, which in turn forced me to think, "I need to get off my ass and do what I've been wanting to do since I've graduated with my J-school degree."

Mostly it ends up being procrastination. I write because it keeps me from having to write (papers) but still makes me feel productive, intelligent, and guilt-free.
That said, I also write when I get in one of those moods that everyone gets but nobody has at the same time as the people around them -- those moods of extreme awe or calm, where the world around me seems beautiful and I suddenly want to get my thoughts down because they feel meaningful and I know they won't anymore in the morning. But then I never show people my writing because later it sounds dumb. Mostly for this kind I'm in the mountains, and once I reenter civilization I go back to normal.

This is going to sound kinda lame but you'd be amazed to know the amount of times I've started writing a comment on this site only to be so disappointed with what I've written that I immediately scrap the whole thing. Even as I'm typing this sentence I'm contemplating bolting out the door before pressing the 'post comment' button!.

Despite how many comments I managed to rack up last year, I swear I do the same thing all the time. I usually wait for someone else to come along and say what I wanted to say better than I ever could. Otherwise my contributions are often pretty sparse and I generally regret them in retrospect. I really did enjoy writing when I was younger, though. I'm just a quitter.

Also,

WRITING IS FUCKING IMPORTANT!

THE WRITTEN WORD WAS AN EVOLUTIONARY QUANTUM LEAP THAT ALLOWED US TO SOAR, SO WHY WOULD YOU NOT FUCKING PARTAKE IN IT GODDAMMIT?!

Sorry, but it makes me angry: there’s cavemen over in Ages Ago that would kill to be able to write like we can; are you really gonna waste words while they’re over there starving on grunts?

I write because campbell and kinsey are dipshits.

I write for my job, and in my, erm, copious free time I write and edit for an online genre magazine. I also dabble in fiction from time to time. And why? -- well, I've wanted to be a writer since I was seven years old. I still have my first "book" around here somewhere -- a spiral notebook that I hounded my mother to buy me containing my epic, "The Adventure of the Kids," featuring Me, all my classmates, and...the Five Little Peppers. (Yes, you read that correctly. I wrote Five Little Peppers fanfic when I was in first grade.) Today, I keep writing because there are very few things that give me greater satisfaction than writing something I'm proud of. On those rare occasions when I really, really get something right, I can actually feel it click in my brain. It's almost a physical sensation. So I guess in a sense it's like a drug, only it's legal and I sometimes get paid for it, not the other way around.

Because the voices in my head can't spell for shit. I have to write for them.

Seriously, I write in order to purge the daydreams and inject some semblance of creativity into my every day life. I'm a research analyst - very dry work. I also have an insane imagination that runs on auto-pilot. If not properly managed via short stories, letters and absurd poems, society will suffer.

I love you, The Dude that Lurks... and I concur.

Anais Nin wrote "We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection."

I love this. And it makes perfect, beautiful sense.

I write to remember. Not just items or events, but how I feel about them at the time. I write to organize my thoughts, and to articulate them better. I write because I like to. I write because I'm better at writing than at speaking to people. I write to understand. I write nowhere near enough. I write to think. I write to feel. I write to philosophize. I write to entertain. I write to express. I write to be sane. I write to purge. I write to emote. I write to exaggerate. I write to amuse. I write to do. I write to be. I write to love. I write.

Well I keep writing why I write but then I keep deleting it 'cause it isn't any good.

The truth is, I write so I can make up words like "colorectalcraniumism"!

Also, I don't think anyone has commented on it yet so I will: thank you for sharing your excerpt, superasente. I think you have an engaging writing style and I'm curious to know what is going to happen next to the young mariner. Do you have more? What is it going to be? Novel? Short story? Not sure yet?

I've been trying for years to quit but i can never seem to stop writing. It's a source of great turmoil for me and a really embarrassing habit.

I'm not a "writer". I don't journal or blog. Lately though, I find myself writing / typing and just going *off* on life, love, feelings... just getting the schtuffs out of my head and onto the 'paper'. Most of the time, I end up saying way too much. Or I actually send it on to someone. And they call me out as far too earnest and emotional. Tough crap Mister! Without my heart, soul, head, thoughts and words... what do I have? I work in HR and maybe the writings just the only creative type outlet I can find. I *wish* I was a painter or a musician or an actress. I'm just a woman that feels *deeply*. I fell in love about 8 mos ago. A man met at a party that neither one of us should have been at. He's looks, smells, feels, drives, plays, acts like everything I thought I would have grabbed ahold of fresh out of high school. Wordsmithy, creative, exciting and dangerously funny. We didn't meet then though. He met his wife and persued her. Our timing was simply off I've been told time and again. He's 'emotionally unavailable'. Yet... we talk nearly every damn day via IM about *whatever*. Something like 280 days and 1020 hours of notes and chat. There's a book in there somewhere. This relationship has been my craved drug, unlike anything else I've ever been involved with... so I write it out in order to not loose my mind. Which may happen anyway.

rhombus, when you don't feel the writing mojo, switch to editing your novel. Books are born in revision anyway, so it counts. I always have one book in the works and one undergoing editing. Also, a big part of writing happens in the 'percolation' stage, when things are just tumbling around in your head, waiting to coalesce into a story.

There are so many entertaining and thoughtful columns posted here that even a chronic layabout like myself has trouble keeping up with all of them, at least in a manner timely enough to add a comment that hasn't already been submitted, and written much better, than I could have provided.

I have not yet perused the comments for this particular column, but its title and subsequent exposition on the subject really caught my attention. It succeeds in maintaining my attention from the initial mouse-click, up to the very moment I'm typing this drivel in response.

Every single one of us who type on this site are "writers" - we don't make a living through it, and maybe hardly ever write at all (discounting the most prolific contributing commentators that have been cited previously).

Whether one is considered a "good" or "bad" writer does not negate the fact that they/we are writers.

All pompousness aside, though, Robert, allow me the pleasure of informing you that, in the most complimentary way I can manage,

that you, sir, are a Writer, and your attempt at explaining why you don't consider yourself as such only further validates my comment. You've revealed your awesome 'writerliness' way too much already to convince us otherwise, so just accept your talent and proceed from there.

Maintain impulse engines, Mr. Scott, warp speed at your discretion... unlike Kirk, I recognize the engineers who keep this Starship running. (Yeah, undeniably shitty writing to be sure, but from a WRITER nonetheless! Theenk You!!)

This is probably way too late to be considered but the one thing I would ask to be looked at on the site is the way the TV reviews are archived; I love reading the recaps and critiques and discussions but because a lot of what's on in the UK is a long way behind the US after I've watched something I really have to hunt around in the reviews for the right episode.

*coughs nervously* Could I very politely request that all the series and episodes be numbered, like they are for Mad Men or True Blood (because Glee isn't)? And maybe also alphabetised by the show's name, rather than the review title? Thankyoueverso.

I'm surprised that no one else has mentioned this, but I write because I like the way I write.

I have a TERRIBLE memory, so if I write something, and find it later, I can read it, and enjoy it. I don't think I'm particularly good, but I write the same way I cook, to please myself. I take forever, I constantly re-edit, and no one I know is interested in my nerdery, so I doubt I'll ever go anywhere with it, but I like my writing more than anything else about myself.

I was a role-playing geek for years, so I like to write stories about my characters, is that fan-fic? Not that I have a problem with fan fic, but I'm just curious.

What if the American people learn the truth: that our foreign policy has nothing to do with national security and that it never changes from one administration to the next?

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2k7xXxdUJ0