A Forum on Writing

You can see my Original Post Here (along with a number of other interesting things):

http://www.thenewconfusion.com/2009/10/forum-on-writing-new-original-works.html

Why do I write? I write because my father’s father couldn’t. And it was illegal for his father to even learn. I write because my father passed his skill to me, an heirloom never to be lost through the generations. I write because sometimes the thoughts in my head need sorting out. Sometimes the words need to be visually realized, to become real, to enter the physical realm. Being a visual artist, I see words as concise brushstrokes, where the idea is evident and (often) rational.

Sometimes, the words are caged animals scratching the inside of my skull, tired of sitting in their own feces accumulated because the outside world refuses to let them out claiming they carry too much weight, declaring the setting is inappropriate, or it simply doesn’t have the time. Sometimes the animals refuse to leave their cage for fear of being ostracized, or because they are unanticipated creatures from the mouth of a large black man.

I write for all of the people in the world who can’t, for whatever reason. I write for all the people I know personally who either lacked the resources to learn or lacked the personal drive to take advantage of the resources they were granted.

But mostly, I write for myself. I need to write: some days are so dense with events and experiences that I have no choice in the matter. My mind and my hand become one, and the ink can’t spill onto the page fast enough. I can only hope to catch the thought long enough to scribble it down before it flutters away.

Writing is uniquely human in that it allows us a window into each others’ thoughts; albeit a foggy window limited by the restrictions of language, grammar, culture, and our own lenses. It allows us all to be in the moment with the author; to think as they thought, and to share in their understanding.