Why Write?
I have heard a myriad of logical reasons and a bathtub full of creative logic by different writers. George Orwell (Wouldn’t that be a clever name for a character in a book? Hm-m-m.), in an essay entitled, Why I Write, lists four straightforward reasons to write. The first reason is egoism. The “desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get back at grown-ups that snubbed you in childhood, etc., etc.” The next reason, aesthetic enthusiasm, is “the perception of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement.” Orwell’s third reason is historical impulse. The “desire to see things as they are to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity.” I am much more in alignment with Anaïs Nin who said, “We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.” His final motive for writing is political purpose. It is a “desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other people’s idea of the kind of society that they should strive after.”
Great list, right? Y’all know how I love lists. If you can think of another motive or reason that Orwell has not captured, please be so kind as to share with me at charles@charlestempleton.com. When I think about my early creative writing attempts, they fell under the first reason, egoism. I was in the fifth grade and sent a Valentine’s Day poem to a girl in my classroom. She gave it to the the teacher, who then read it aloud to the class. Thus ended a budding poetry career. Well, for awhile. Truthfully, most of the writing I completed from about five or six-years-old until I retired from education, had more to do with being required or assigned to write about a specific topic, or filling out thousands of forms for reasons I can’t even fathom today. I suppose that type of writing could fall under ‘written for a political purpose.’ I was trying to graduate and if regurgitating the professor’s words in a blue book would move me in that direction, then I was thrilled to write.
When I returned home from Vietnam in 1969, I, like many of my brothers-in-arms, suffered a mild form of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSS). Fortunately, I had a compassionate support group when I returned home. While visiting with one of my high school English teachers, Miz Nina Ferrill, who had a major impact on my life, she demanded that I begin a journal. That I write about my experiences, my emotions and feelings, and what triggered my strong responses. This was the beginning of my desire to write. It was a historical impulse. I found myself writing not only about my triggers, but about past events. When I would share my thoughts, Miz Ferrill would ask, “What did the inside of your helicopter smell like? Describe your Gunnery Sergeant for me so that I might close my eyes and see him? What went through your mind when your helicopter crashed in that rice paddy?”
In her way, she was helping me deal. She was also encouraging me to discover my very personal aesthetic enthusiasm, by asking me to substitute different words for the ones I used. To find my style. My rhythm. We would sit and read a passage aloud until the sound of the passage flowed and intersected with the intent of the passage. Fear had a different sound than anxiety, confusion different than calmness, excitement different than romance. My time at home was short-lived, however, and after a brief thirty day stay, I put away my writing materials and headed to the Presidential Helicopter Squadron in Quantico, VA. It was my last year in the Marine Corps.
did not think much about writing again until after I completed my BA at Austin College, and took an elementary teaching job in Richardson, TX. I had a friend who encouraged me to turn my stories into a book. I had a good laugh about that, but the seed had been planted. Over the next forty years, after reading a book about Vietnam or watching a movie, I would pull my notes out of a drawer and add to them or revise. Most often I would hear a Beatles song or the Temptations on the radio and it would trigger a memory of a war fought long ago and far away, and I would rush to get it down on paper. Then, in the early 90s, when Iraq invaded Kuwait, I started having some flashbacks. I started writing again. It was then that I realized that my motive for writing had always been to get inside my own head, to examine my thoughts, my emotions, my reactions, and my understanding of the world.
Until Next Time,
I Remain,
Just an old Zororastafarian blacksmith trying to hammer a few dents out of his head
