WHEN WRITING ISN’T ENOUGH

Writing has always been both a passion and a dream of mine for as long as I can remember. Actually, it’s not just a passion or a dream, it’s a necessity in order for me to feel like a human being. For me, to write is truly to live. I live for the words, the characters, the fantastical places that roam about in my brain at any given moment, urging me to put them down on paper. I live for that feeling of total absorption into a story that my heart can’t wait to fully discover. I live for those long nights when the worlds I’ve created crash and rattle in my mind like the lightning and thunder of an impending storm; far from anything that would lull me to sleep. I live to observe, record, and create.

But sometimes all of this doesn’t feel like it’s enough. By nature, writing is a solitary experience. One in which most relish the silence and the solitude it affords. But still, by its very nature, writing is something that one feels must be shared. One doesn’t just write to pile all those delectable tidbits of creativity in a dark corner, never to be seen by a single, solitary soul. One writes to share. One writes to connect. One writes to create a singular bond with other mortal creatures and to give them, at least for the briefest of instances, a morsel of the immortal, of the otherworldly bliss that is Story.

Stories are universal. They are meant to be shared. In truth, we are not just writing for ourselves, but rather, for everyone in the world who can understand our characters’ shared experiences. That is what makes our writing so powerful, so meaningful, and so necessary. Only by shared experiences do we truly realize that we are all the same. We are all human. And we all have the same desire in life. To Live.

Perhaps this is an overly romanticized version of what most writers would say is a hard and often frustrating experience. That is probably a correct assumption. It is a messy business that cannot be escaped if we truly want to create. But amid all of that hard work and messiness, there is pure joy and satisfaction in what is being created. It is a little bit of the Divine slipping from our fingertips onto countless pages for the world to enjoy. For me, that is reason enough to keep writing. Of course, I write for myself, my own pleasure, and my own enjoyment, but the reality of it is that I write for others. I write for their pleasure and their enjoyment. It is a sacrifice, as well as an ultimate goal that with each page I hope to reach.

Therefore, while we writers spin the complicated webs of our individual tales, let us remember that we may write alone, but through our stories, we are never truly alone. We are sharing in the great masterpiece that is the human experience, and by putting our words into this organized concoction of chaos, we are living. And that is enough.

Keshia C. Willi