Why I Write (or Myself as a Writer)

When I think about myself as a writer, I'd like to think that I'm fairly good. Because who wants to start off by saying that they suck at writing? Anyway, my writing abilities have been fairly well developed thanks to my high school English Classes. I was on the school newspaper and wrote for their entertainment section by doing movie reviews. I also wrote an article about my high school's science fair which was published in 10 of the 13 newspapers it was submitted to. So yea, I'm kinda good. But all bragging and ego inflating aside, as a writer I tend to try and have a sarcastic and faux witty style so that I can make people laugh a bit. I like to keep my sentences short and sweet but admittedly I do write some pretty long sentences. My writing style has been influenced by several prominent authors which include Dennis Lehane, Earnest Hemingway, Tucker Max, Dave Barry and Matt Taibbi . Thus the sarcastic side of most of my writing. I tend to write out of a necessity to empty out my mind. I'm always thinking about things so it can get a little cluttered so writing serves as a filing system for me. As a creative outlet, writing helps me get rid of the excess internal energy by making me think a bit more. That said, I don't just sit around and write prose. I also dabble in song writing and poetry (apparently there's a difference but I honestly can't draw the line. Oh well, shades of gray.) As a writer, I also tend to over analyze things from a literary perspective and lead my readers in a certain directions so that they can see things the way I see them.

George Orwell's "Why I Write" is an essay which documents his beliefs about his writings and his inspiration. He starts by saying that his writing was a haven for loneliness and that it would help him create his own world as a way to compensate for his failure in the real one. He then lists his early successes and failures in order to highlight the fact that while writing is in his nature, he is by no means perfect. He notes that he knew how to be descriptive and that early development was the drive of his writing . He seems to suggest that writing is about being able to control your emotions such as anger and aggression in a mature way so as to avoid writing trash or immature works of literature. He claims that the 4 great reasons to right prose are: egoism (I totally agree with this point), aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse and political purpose. While he was clearly a political writer (see 1984 and Animal Farm), I don't believe that one author needs to only gravitate to one. I believe that to be a good writer you need to have a balance of the 4 motivations. However, Orwell makes a point to say that he wanted to make political statements in an artistic manner since it would be heavily influenced by injustice and would champion justice in a manner that people would be attracted and enthralled and be able to see as Orwell sees. In the end however, he captures the idea of a writer perfectly when he says that writing is a struggle with the instincts of the writer and the personal demons which serve as motivation and yet still contains the author's personality.