Recently, the media has been going crazy over the website I Write Like http://iwl.me/ So, I checked it out. The first time I copied a snippet of my WIP, the site claimed I write like *insert drum roll here* David Foster Wallace. The second time, my style matched Stephanie Meyer. I don't really care who they say because when I type the last word, I write like me.
But I thought about why I write. Writers have their own reasons to put themselves through the crazy, euphoric states that writers deal with. For me, the answer is simple. Adventure. As a little girl, I wanted nothing more than to be an actress. I wanted to inhabit other people [not in a creepy body snatchers way], to wear their skin and live their lives, to feel what brought them joy or pain and discover what they love dand hated. I wondered about people's flaws and talents? I was curious about their lives. Still to this day, I love to hear people's stories and I often wonder about the emotions that charge through them, the choices they made that they're proud of or wish could do differently. I love to know what makes people tick. When people didn't tell me or couldn't, I made up stories.
A favorite game of mine in the car was concocting stories about the people who lived in the houses we drove past. I wondered about their kitchens, the secrets they kept even mundane aspects of their lives. Soon, the stories weren't enough to stay in my head so I had to put them to paper. Acting lost my attention after time but I couldn't stop thinking about the characters that existed out there or the ones that I could create.
Now, I spin lives from a few snippets of ideas that float around and grab me. While I write and flesh out the characters, I feel like I become the heroine with her inner conflict that must be healed or a hero, all Alpha but with his much guarded love deep inside his hard masculine shell. To put it simply, I write because I want to be a thousand different people whether a heiress, rake or It girl and writing, just like reading, lets me experience worlds and adventures that no travel agent can get a ticket for.
Tell me why you write?
3 comments:
Lovely post. I write for the sheer fun of it. Like you, so many minds to occupy, so little time. I'm waiting for them to invent a mind-controlled keyboard.
I write because I want to give the feeling I get from reading a book to someone else. I want to tell a grand adventure and take others on the ride with me.
I write to tell the stories in my head. I can't find them in other books so I have to let them out. I love twisting and torturing my characters only to have them battle through it all to find love. :)
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