Why I Write
As I sit in class and I try to pay attention to the numbers etched across the board, stories flash across my eyes that sit at the tip of my fingers waiting to be expelled from my mind. I try to grip my pen harder, I try to take a sip of water, I try to snap myself out of the trance, but my brain always wins against my better judgement, and when I start writing, I cannot stop. Before I know it, class is over, I have no relics from class showing my science or math engagement, but I have a story to show for the lecture in my google docs that has nothing to do with the class, but everything to do with my imagination.
In the second grade, my teacher told me I must put my books down during math and I have to multiply numbers with the rest of the class. I was one step ahead of her, I always kept three copies of my novel inside my desk to back up the one she took away. My teacher, as a punishment, refused to allow me to participate in third grade English with the “gifted” students. My teacher told me I must not talk when coloring to stop me from distracting the other students, even though everyone else could speak. My teacher told me I cannot use two papers instead of one when writing my stories during Language Arts, because I would just be “blabbering”. The structure attempted to make me a less-confident eight year old. I grew up with the will of Galileo proving his scientific findings. I grew up with the will of Hamilton shaping the United States Treasury. I grew up with the will of a thousand ants moving a piece of bread. I refused to back down in spite of everyone who attempted to stampede on my intellect.
I cannot just accept that others know better than me without sufficient evidence. As a child, I would challenge my parents when the reason I had to go to bed at 7 PM was because “I said so”. As a pre-teen, I would challenge my friends when they said the reason they would not go to Barnes and Noble with me was because “the movies are more fun”. As a teenager, I challenge rules with no reasonable explanation. I cannot take no for an answer if I cannot understand why it is a no.
And that is why I write.
In the eighth grade, my english teacher had us start a blog as a school project. Not one assignment in any of the thousands I have done has impacted me as much as this one has. Four years have gone by, and out of the 500 other kids that were in my grade in public school, I am the only person who still continually updates my blog. My english teacher challenged me to write more in depth, she challenged me to explore the topic I am scribing better. She taught me tactics on how to focus by not using control, but rather taught me personal choice, and how my actions affect others and myself. My blog became an outlet for my thoughts, my feelings, my worldview, my interests, anything and everything that came to my mind and kept me distracted during class or up at night, my blog was my outlet. I’ll never be able to thank her enough for that.
My blog taught me how to code a website and put everything I learned in computer science to use. I learned how to format my work, and add photos to supplement it. I was able to take my words that I could never stop speaking and put them down to be read by others who actually want to hear them. I was able to make some people laugh, and connect with kids in my class who also enjoyed writing who I would have never talked to otherwise. I joined groups online of other bloggers, and I learned how to engage more people. I’ll never be ashamed that I only recieve four viewers a month on my blog because unlike originally, other people reading is not what motivates me. Reading my own work and seeing my improvements motivates me to write more.
I write to escape the mortal world my feet tread. My boredom is never present when I am able to flow my ideas onto my website; I can take the thoughts I possess that I feel as though nobody else has and give it to the world. When will I ever run out of ideas, when will my thoughts finish? I simply cannot imagine my life without words, my life without the flow I have right now as I type out my thoughts onto this virtual paper. My brain is circling the globe and shooting up into space and beyond, leaving behind all of my commitments as my body sits in my high school. My fingers are a jet engine flying my words away from my brain and giving them to this computer.
I’ll never know if I prefer nonfiction or fiction writing, but I know I prefer words. In a non-narcissistic way, I obsess over the thought that I can string whatever words the English language gave me in whatever way I want, and every which way they are put together, my brain will interpret them differently and make me feel differently. I know I hyperfixate, but writing allows me to expel my hyperfixations and be done with my obsessions before I am something to be perceived as annoying. I write to let the talkative side of myself stay with myself, and whoever on earth wants to meet her can, through my blog. Since I was six months old, books kept me consumed for hours on end. I could not walk, I could not talk, I could not control my bowel, I could not do any basic human functions. But I knew I loved words. They fascinated me. My mother tells me stories of finding her baby on the floor surrounded by picture books, staring at pictures and words for hours, flipping pages. The baby had no interest in blocks or dolls, just books. As the baby grew older into the woman I am today, the one thing that stayed consistent was her love of words, and creating strings of words.
I write for consistency.
I write for escape.
I write for reminders of different times in my life.
I write for the beautiful purple Inkjoy pens at Staples.
I write for my older self, who will wonder what her younger self thought about.
I write for my younger self, who was curious where writing could take her.
I write for my biographer, who will wonder when I am long gone what I published as a juvenile.
I write to prove nothing.
I write to give the world everything I can offer.
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