#why i write

I don’t remember the first thing I ever wrote, but I remember the first time it felt like something real. I was a kid sitting on the floor with a notebook I stole from a school supply closet (sorry to whoever had to reorder those). The paper smelled like dust and cardboard, and the pen barely worked unless I pressed down so hard the letters carved grooves through the page.

But it was the first time the noise in my brain actually went somewhere. Like, every thought finally had a door it could run through instead of ricocheting around in my head all day.

I didn’t think “oh, writing is my calling” or any dramatic chosen-one moment. It was more like an accidental coping mechanism that stuck. The way some people pick up nail-biting or energy drinks. I picked up stories.

For a long time I didn’t show anything to anyone. I wrote in margins, on backs of worksheets, in the notes app that was one cracked screen away from deleting everything forever. Half the time the stories made no sense. They weren’t good. They weren’t even readable. But they made me feel like I could breathe.

And then life hit. The real stuff. The stuff you don’t talk about outside a group chat with one trusted friend and maybe your cat. And I kept writing because it was the only place I could say things without flinching. Not even as myself, usually through characters who didn’t exist, who could take the fall for feelings I didn’t want to claim yet.

Somewhere along the way, it became less about escape and more about… construction. Like building rooms in my head where I could actually live. I wasn’t trying to run away anymore. I was trying to understand.

At some point I started sharing pieces online, thinking maybe three people would read them. And then somehow a little circle formed, people who also hoard stories, who also overthink sentence structure at 2AM, who also have that twitchy urge to write something down before it slips away.

I don’t know when it shifted from “this is my weird hobby” to “this is how I exist in the world,” but it did. Writing is the place I go to make sense of things, or break them, or rebuild them, or at least pretend I know what I’m doing for a few minutes.

And if you’re here reading this, chances are writing grabbed you too. Maybe gently. Maybe by the throat. (Both are valid.)

Because something happened, and silence makes it louder.

Because if you don’t put it down, it sits in you wrong.

Not to be clever.

I mean, reading other fics, people describe a lot and you don't tend to do that. Like the surroundings, the feelings of the character... Was there a reason for it? Also do you like read other people's work and get worried that there's is really different?

I DON'T MEAN THIS RUDELY I LOVE ZALDRITSOS I WAS JUST WONDERING

Hiyaaaaa! And oh boss, you’ve hit my weakness, my Achilles heel, the thing that will have me wrapped in paranoia and PRANG…

How I write…

So firstly, my place is an open space so please don’t worry about coming across as rude, you have a genuine question so I’ll genuinely answer

Ummm how to answer though? Ok, so, yes I totally over analyse my own work compared to others. I know that many authors write beautiful prose with long, admirable paragraphs that detail exceptionally

Which I love

But, and I preface this by saying that this is just me, I write using the specific method of close third person narrative.

I’m not gonna bore anyone with this, I know you guys don’t care that much, but essentially (could google the answer but cba) I write as if we are in the characters head. So for Zaldrītsos it’s Aerion and Kaerīnnon it’s Baelor.

This means we see through their eyes and are basically in their minds. We don’t get lyrical poetry half the time, we see what they see and think what they think. Whether that’s good or bad boss idk, I just do it that way

So yes, we literally only see what Aerion sees or hears or knows bc we are him he is us.. and same with Baelor… sorry if it’s not like other fics idk boss that’s just what we do round here

Anyways this was a boring rant but I hope it explains it, if anyone isn’t into how I write then you can just not read it hehe (no pass agg there just genuine!)

Anyways, thank you for the ask, feel free to ask anything there’s no limits here!

And obviously like, that's not going to happen. People don't get famous by writing overly long and cerebral AUs of twenty-five year old video games. So there is still a level of personal expression going on here, but the motivation isn't coming from within. I'm doing it for the kudos. I'm doing it for the comments. I'm doing it for the extraordinarily rare bookmark with notes.

Maybe that's not sustainable. Maybe if the comments and the kudos and the bookmarks with notes dry up then I'll give up on finishing it all. Maybe my ambitions overreach my means, and my talents, but man. Man. That is what's going on here.

"If writing is associated with any divine spirit, it is not a sweet Muse, but closer to selling your soul to the devil..."

Writing is the hardest thing I have ever done. Harder than getting into Harvard. Harder than working at McKinsey.

Writing is isolating. It forces me to confront my particularities: thoughts nobody else will ever understand, or care to understand, as much as I do.

Writing reminds me that everything I hold dear is transient. A thought can fade. A line I poured my soul into can vanish unread, lost in the sea of information, deleted without a trace.

"Writing a letter of endorsement" by Harry Furniss

Above all, writing is hard work. It is not the romanticized Muse whispering perfectly crafted verse in one's ear, but hours upon hours at a tiny desk, struggling to make sense of the cluttered mess of human life. (Why does no one talk about the physical strain of sitting sixteen hours a day?) Drafting, reading, rewriting, rereading, searching for the right word — only to delete the line altogether.

And the reward? A post, or if lucky, a publication — one or two likes, then crickets. Juxtaposed against some trending pieces that, despite their confident tone and impeccable aesthetic, seem not to say what they really want to say.

I begin to question: why write at all? It feels like a terrible investment: the downsides are obvious, and the upside so unlikely.

In despair, I found this phrase: “Manuscripts don’t burn!”

And my mind went to a quote from Tony Fadell (creator of the iPod and Google Nest):

He was speaking of entrepreneurship. I find it applies to writing too.

If writing is associated with any divine spirit, it is not a sweet Muse, but closer to selling your soul to the devil — letting yourself be haunted and tormented in the hope that something true might emerge.

In The Master and Margarita, the master says:

Art work by Jamie Whyte

In Little Women, Jo learns this too:

Little Women (2019) dir. by Greta Gerwig; quote from the book

I write because I am seized by this frenzy. I renounce my name and surrender to my characters. Their story demands to be written. Otherworldly or not — isn’t it all the same?

I write because it is all I can do. To rage against impermanence. Because “Everything changes, but nothing perishes” (Ovid, Metamorphoses).

Bulgakov wrote The Master and Margarita never expecting it to be published. He made me realize I have been confusing reasons to write with reasons to publish.

Yeshua Ha-Nozri says of Matthew Levi’s parchment:

Artwork: "Christ before Caiaphas" by Mattias Stom

Matthew Levi’s parchment, often interpreted as a reimagining of the Gospel of Matthew, went on to be widely read and highly influential. But it did not make Matthew Levi a master.

So all the “writers” who never poured their souls into their work, who never allowed themselves to be possessed by their writing — whether by God or the Devil — no matter how widely read, how “successful” — are modern “Matthew Levi”s: disciples, scribes at best.

Real writing demands soul.

remembering why i started, i once thought, would have to come in a pivotal moment of my career: bagging an accomplishment, receiving critical acclaim, or making a name for myself.