Why I Write

This isn't so much of an article as it is me just... ranting, really.

One question I ask myself often-

Wait, no scratch that. I really don't. But, anyways, I occasionally wonder why I write. I mean, I do it because it's fun, but... I seem to think so much about it, about how this sounds, or about how this or that could fit better into this story, or about how I should put this in a story the next time I'm writing...

I really don't know. It definitely goes beyond, "Quick S&Gs." I love to write. To the point where... I get a really good feeling out of something that is long and well written. I write when I can, regardless of whether or not it's scribbling notes, actually taking notes, writing an essay, writing my commentary in the margins, writing a story, a plan for the day, or even an article on why I write.

When I'm not writing, I find it hard to focus on anything else, provided nothing is demanding my immediate attention (Movies, getting yelled at, saving people from mortal peril, etc. All of which I totally do on a regular basis. Especially the third one. *Flashes cape*). I'm always replaying scenes from other stories, or my stories, thinking about how they look, about how I could change them, or about where to go next. I'm thinking about What if I adapted this series into a different setting? or What can I do to make the characters more believable? or even What liberties should I take with this character's backstory? I love brainstorming, thinking, and planning, even if said plans never get put into fruition. I love starting stories that only make it to one page, or even one paragraph, because I was able to turn the idea into something, and expand on it. Oftentimes, I'll either forget about it, or realize I don't know where I'm going, but...

I'm not claiming to be a genius, or a writing prodigy. I mean, I'm probably exaggerating a little, because I spent about three hours playing World of Warcraft, without giving a lick about my stories.

Then again, I was roleplaying. And I think about how I could be roleplaying when I'm not roleplaying and playing World of Warcraft. Sad, huh? Hell yeah, it is. T_T

Buuut... That only describes what kind of a writer I am. It doesn't describe why I write. It doesn't answer the question of why I don't finish what I start, or why I care so much about getting recognition for what I do. It doesn't answer the question about why I get caught with writer's block, and then let a story die. It doesn't answer the original why.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, in front of you all, I am going to pick my brain and find this answer.

I have been seriously writing now for... quite a while. If you count a year and a half as quite a while. By "seriously writing", I mean I'm making a conscious effort to improve myself, to try to increase the quality of my work. Though essays and the like have always come fairly easy to me, I always ran into several problems I never bothered correcting, or, more frequently, was unaware of.

I'm pretty sure all of this started with my reading Reinterpretation of Scarlet Devil, a fanfiction of a series called Touhou Project that...

Well, not just in my opinion. I've seen it in quite a few places that the author writes professional-grade stuff, and he really does. His works are... brilliant...

But this isn't about that, or how utterly awesome that story was. It's about the fact that... I guess reading that, I was sort of inspired. As I read, and this was before I had started to read anything other than Lord of the Rings (I skimmed through a lot, admittedly. I need to reread that now that I have the attention span) and the Redwall series (Multiple retellings of the same basic plot, but they're still pretty good), I felt like... Well...

I wanted to write something that people would read, and have a clear, detailed image of. And in that image, people would be doing unimaginable things, while still keeping the emotions, the feelings, everything... utterly realistic. Reading RoSD, what impressed me wasn't "Oh, cool! This guy really put detail into the fights!" or "Wow, he did a great job of turning a six-stage shoot-'em-up into a really long story!". I mean, I noticed those things, and thought they were cool, but what really made me stop, and bookmark this guy's page was, "Wow... All the emotions, the relations, the dialogue... All of it is so believable, and yet the same time, fantastical." This guy put thought into everything, taking the bare outline of a world from a series of video games, scrapping everything he didn't like, and then painting over the entire thing with his beautiful masterpiece. Highly impressive doesn't even begin to cover it. Though... he can be kind of an arrogant ass at all other times. Scratch that... He is an arrogant ass. But... His stories are good.

But... Like I said, I was impressed with the realism, the amount of detail, which would probably make Dumas nod in grudging satisfaction. To quote him (And, in finding this quote, I almost got sucked into Archive Binging again, but he writes long, and really preachy, stuff on his blog, so... yeah),

For example, I write the sentence, "Marisa Kirisame walked into the Hakurei Shrine's courtyard." Touhou fans will have no trouble picturing this. They already have a mental image of Marisa, and they've seen enough of shinto shrines to have at least a general idea of her setting. They need little, if any, extra description. But what of those who have never played any danmaku game? They don't know who Marisa is, what the Hakurei Shrine is, or where any of this is happening. Extra words are needed for their sake, but too many words will alienate the Touhou familiars.

Click to expand...

And... That's why he's awesome. He strikes a perfect balance between Original Fiction and Fan Fiction.

Oh, and, as he screamed about in what blog post, he likes to make all of his stories have a moral. Apparently, some people hate this. I think it's really nifty (If not mildly weird) that these ancient beings are teaching each other about love and peace (In all seriousness, he handles it really well. The gradual changes people go through with acceptance and hatred, for example). I mean, it's not why I read, but it's certainly not a game-breaker. For me. I love Touhou.

Anyway, getting back on track...

Wait, no, I'm WAAAAAAAAY off track, and this turned into a Why I Love This Guy rant. And if I'm going to do that, I need to give the author of Imperfect Metamorphosis one too.

But then I'd be here 'till one in the morning. So... Let's scroll up to see where I got off track...

Blahbady blah, my first impressions of this guy's work...

Why I wri- Oh, no, too far.

...here we go...

"This guy put thought into everything, taking the bare outline of a world from a series of video games, scrapping everything he didn't like, and then painting over the entire thing with his beautiful masterpiece."

Yeah. He put thought into it, and took the reader to amazing places.

And I felt like... I wanted to do that too. At first, it was just me saying, "Okay, X and Y are going on a quest of somesort. Stuff happens, and I live out my wildest dreams as a fan, as people get beaten up and stuff."

Yeah, that was fun to do. And I thought it was good, because the reviews were a shallow pat on the back.

And then someone posted a review that grabbed me by the chin, put its nose in my face, and, with onion breath, told me that my story sucked.

Raqequit ensued.

Okay, not really.

By that point, I had moved on from that story, buried it, and had started two more (One ongoing, long one, and one collection of short stories). By this point, I was writing for the sake of writing, forcing myself to put something down on a piece of paper. The moments where I thought, "Man, I've been waiting to play this scene out!" were getting fewer and fewer.

So, yeah, in a way... I ragequitted. I realized I had a lot to learn, so I took a step back. I wanted to take time to read, write for myself, and develop.

I'm still doing that, and I don't want to go back to posting stories anytime soon. Sure, I'll post a chapter or two of a story that never goes anywhere for fun, but...

I dunno. I'm still enjoying the time where I can just spit something out onto paper, maybe toy around with it for a few minutes, get distracted, and forget about it.

Well, not really. I still feel obliged to complete my aborted children. But I'll get over that. I always do. Miss an episode of a show for the first time in four weeks? APOCALYPSE!

Do it again? Oh no...?

Third time? Meh.

It'll come with time.

And now I think I've answered my own question. I write because I like to write, to grow, to see my ideas take form and shoot off in a random direction. I like the challenge of, "Is this in character?", and I love sharing my character's feelings when I write emotional scenes.

Since then, a lot has happened, and I've learned to be more open with myself, to stop shoving undesirable feelings into some dark corner. It lets me feel more, and that lets me channel that into my writing.

It's ironic, isn't it? I first started writing Burning Obsession to have something to do, as an outlet for my time. It wasn't the first thing I'd written, but it was the first thing I'd done where I'd said, "Hey, I'm going to do something from start to finish. I'm going to dig in, stick with it, and do it." And it felt good for the time. I want to have an experience like that again, because...

As horrible as the result was, (Well, not relatively horrible, because most fanfiction is crap. At least I dotted my i's and crossed my t's), I want to do something like that again.

You know what? Maybe next year I'll do NaNoWriMo, that slapdash, crazy, "Whatever you want, so long as you write" thing.

It looks fun, and I'd love to give it a try.


Yours,
Shanghai Alice