“Why is it that the words that we write for ourselves are always so much better than the words we write for others?” – William Forrester
I’ve often pondered this question, since I wrote in school because it was required (and hated nearly every minute of it), and written for myself for approximately thirteen years (and loved nearly every minute of it). Maybe it’s because I leave a piece of myself behind like a blood sample on nearly every page; maybe it’s because I find it much easier to express myself through writing than talking, and that my brain seems more conducive to typing than it does to actually carrying on a conversation; maybe it’s because the delete key solves many a problem that I face in the universe; maybe it’s because I had more stories contained within me than I ever thought possible; or maybe it’s because I sometimes feel as though I save up or store words for the right moments, and many of those moments make their way to the page.
Whatever the reason, though, writing for myself excites me, because I don’t have to worry about rules, or the audience for my completed manuscript, or if my grade will be an accurate representation of my talent, or lack thereof. First and foremost, I need to make myself happy, writing the kind of story I would like to read, and let the rest of it work itself out through fisticuffs, or the passage of time. When someone connects with one of my stories, or another piece of writing I may have done, I feel like they’ve somehow connected with me. And while it used to bother me more if someone didn’t get or understand what I had done, now it tends to bother me a little less. Putting myself out there, laying it all on the line every time I sit down to dine (or in this analogy write) and continuing to do so…well, there’s something heroic about that. And heroes get remembered.