Write

Illustration by Shenuka Correa

Why I Write

The reasons for writing may change over time, but a writer's passion stays the same.

I don’t often ask myself why I write. Mostly because it doesn’t really matter. I write to express myself, to let off steam. I also write to improve myself, because it’s something I want to create a career out of. I also write because I have to, as I am, after all, at university. But that doesn’t mean I would write on a topic that doesn’t interest me. So I guess to answer the question of why I write, I’d have to tackle what I write.
When I was 7 years old, I made my first attempt at writing a short story. I never finished it, but I found a way to openly express myself. I wrote about a girl who made hats and adopted a street dog. I had no idea where I was going with it, or where the idea came from. I sat down in front of an old PC and instead of opening up a game of Finding Nemo, I typed up a story. There was no real reason behind it — I just wanted to. It was fun and interesting to my 7-year-old brain.
A year later, I had to write my first essay. It was about planets and the only I thing I can recall was that I wrote about Saturn and its celestial moons — not that I knew what celestial meant. It just sounded cool and my teacher thought I plagiarized my essay because of that one word. I had to re-write the whole essay. But that was a piece of writing that I had to write. It wasn’t nearly as fun as writing my short story. It just wasn’t as inventive.
I write to remember things, ideas and stories. When I say this, it’s a bit different than what people normally think. I would spend hours just listening to music and inventing stories out of my head. Being afraid of forgetting these stories, I would begin to write. That is when I found writing to be so much more enjoyable. I would borrow the latest dictionary from the library and sit down in front of the bulky laptops — back when they were way too heavy to carry around — and type away. I would search for words that I didn’t know, look for synonyms and try to use my fifth grade vocabulary word assignment for some inspiration.
In the fifth grade, I had to actually submit a short story. So I wrote one that was way too long. It was terrible. I had no idea how to structure a story. My short story, which was all about fantasy and some version of Mulan, came back to me covered in blood — otherwise known as my English teacher’s red pen edits. I threw that story into a trashcan and never looked back.
But that didn’t stop me from writing. I had to write my ideas down. I had gone from part time daydreamer to some kind of freelance 12-year-old writer. I started drawing my characters, keeping a notebook on me with notes and then I discovered online writing platforms.
Up until that point, I had written for no one but myself. I wrote for assignments and sometimes, I would write and show them to a few friends. But no one really caught onto them. I went through that phase of looking for an audience. I asked among my friends but they weren’t that into reading their classmate’s stories. They were more into young adult fiction author Rick Riordan and a Rick Riordan I was not.
So I wrote online and I wrote for an audience that I wanted to have. I got a few reads here and there. I got comments and that encouraged me. I continued to work.
Then I moved from one online platform to another. This one was a bit more competitive. I started writing for views and I know it’s a small thing, but it felt like the world to me. This put me down a slippery slope and I lost confidence – no one wanted to read my work. So I took a break.
I signed up for my school newspaper. I wrote only when I had to and I let life take over. Why did I write then? Because I had to submit something. Anything. I wrote that same formulaic format that everyone knows by heart. Title, hook, context, thesis, body paragraph … it goes on. I wrote tiny articles, nothing compared to the ones I write now. I wrote three paragraphs for a newspaper that barely got any reads because our audience was about a hundred people. We printed our newspapers but they would barely get picked up from the library shelves.
It wasn’t until ninth grade that I started to write for leisure again. It was summer vacation and I had nothing better to do. I uploaded my piece online just to feel a bit more accomplished. I made cover pages, created a pen-name and added some kind of funny summary. Sure, I wanted an audience, but I wanted to write out my thoughts, my frustrations and I found myself doing just that.
After a few months, I got reads again. A small but appreciative audience online. So I started talking in my writing and I wrote to communicate. I wrote in response to feedback and I wrote because there were people that wanted to read my work. I had an audience now and even if it was just a thousand reads from people I didn’t know, it was an enjoyable experience.
I finished a mediocre novel that had maybe around ten thousand views online. At that point, it was enough for me to enjoy writing for both myself and the audience I had. So I continued. I wrote things that I thought my audience expected of me. I continued to write, hoping that I could offer something different plotlines that weren't so cliche that you would cringe. I wrote deliberately twisting cliches in an attempt to be original.
Later, I wrote a new story. I wrote not to gain views — I wasn’t that popular anyway — but to show I could do different. To my surprise, I gained more attention for my writing when I did that. I guess I could say I got lucky. So I kept writing and the views and the comments started helping.
The views undoubtedly encouraged me, and I wrote and I read every comment I could. I felt appreciated as a writer and I was writing out of my head. I wasn’t writing an essay for a teacher, I wasn’t writing a short story that had to be graded. I had the freedom to do what I wanted for this writing and I had an audience that supported it.
I write for that website to this day. Sure, I don’t have the time to devote myself to writing regularly. But I still write to express myself and get my imagination running. Once I get started, writing doesn’t become a job anymore — it becomes an outlet. In some ways, however, it is a job for me. I write short stories and earn a little here and there from that website. I also write for another platform where I can make a little profit. So I have a little bit of hope in writing for a living.
So I guess today, I write to improve. I hope that I can make a living off of the kind of writing that I use to create stories. I write to let off steam and still write for myself. I still spend a lot of time daydreaming, which weirdly enough pushes me to write a little everyday. To answer why I write: I write to express myself. That’s about as simple as my reason gets.
Dominique Joaquin is Deputy Features. Email her at feedback@thegazelle.org.
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