The Truth About Writing

The Truth About Writing

"What inspires you to write?" is a question I get asked too often by friends and neighbors and teachers and relatives. They ask to be polite, to keep a conversation going. They don't actually care about the answer. All they want is a neat little package presented to them with my simple one-word-or-phrase-or-sentence answer. They assume their question is as simple as the obligatory “how are you?”—to which the only acceptable responses are “good,” “fine,” and “great, thanks.”

These people think there is one right answer I can give them, but writing is not math. There are no patterns or reasons or rules. Writing is chaotic, messy, disorganized. It is different for every single person who calls themselves a writer, and no two people will ever be able to answer the question “what inspires you to write?” the same way.

Usually, my response to this question is something polite and predictable like “my life experiences.” I don’t tell them that I’m inspired by the sound of breathing in a quiet room or the promise a sunrise holds or the diatribe spilling from my classmates’ mouths in the hallway. I don’t tell them that music causes my fingers to twitch if they are not wrapped around a pen or that sometimes when I’m driving I create stories in my head about utopias and monsters and the people walking down the sidewalk. I don’t tell them that I can’t imagine my life without words, without the ability to escape into the world of a spiral notebook, without my skin covered in ink that forms random phrases and ideas that I can’t trust my mind to remember on its own.

I could say all of these things, but if I said them, I'd also have to say that I keep a notebook next to my bed because sometimes I wake up at two in the morning when my subconscious mind has something brilliant to share. I’d have to say that I live my life on the sidelines, always observing other people rather than participating myself. I’d have to say that even the most mundane objects—tissue boxes and cotton shirts and shoelaces—have the power to ignite a fire of inspiration in me.

I don't want to tell anyone any of that, because I know they won't listen, or if they do listen, they won't understand. So I keep all of my thoughts on writing to myself, because secrets are fun to keep, and I comfort myself with the knowledge that this secret is mine, mine and no one else's, and it cannot be taken from me.

Maybe the next time someone asks me “what inspires you to write?” I'll just tell them the truth: that it's a secret, that they wouldn't understand, that they don't truly care. Or maybe I’ll answer their question with a question of my own. “What doesn't inspire me?” I’ll respond, and I’ll dare them to come up with an answer.