Why Write?

For the fun of it. For the art, yes, and the stacking of words. For the melody and rhythm of a sentence, echoed by another. Why not for fun? After the final page, Real Life takes you back—he always does—he’s always happy for company in his odorous cinderblock cell, until we chisel another way out. Perhaps it’s better to say I understand my everyday struggles when I see them in a story. It’s one thing to hear about redemption, another to see it played out among Dmitri, Ivan, and Alyosha in The Brothers Karamazov. We may consider the existence of alternate realities, intertwined with our own reality, but you can’t beat the experience of Neuromancer, The Man Who Was Thursday, or The Matrix.

Epic stories. Stories that grab you by the shirt and haul you off to realms of adventure. Yeah, I’ll stand on a table to cheer for a good epic. Because deep down, I think we’re all meant for a life of courage and heroism. I believe there are still things in this life worth searching for, worth the sacrifice of our lives. The Sacred. The Beautiful. Give me a story that expresses love truthfully. Tell me a tale that reveals hope, and displays beauty in the halls of tragedy. Literary or genre. Fiction or non-fiction. Doesn’t matter. Do it with excellence, with inspiration, and watch these words resonate through the chambers of the centuries. Art of this nature does more than entertain. It acts as a guidepost in the forests of life, when the brush has taken over, and it’s hard to believe a path ever existed. Let your stories tell the truth, and I’ll find direction to The Way. “Why write?” you might ask again. I would return—to fashion balms for the wounded, to form weapons against the dread night, to sing a song when silence scales our towers, and all seems lost to the miasma of indifference and despair. In other words, I write for the sake of love. So, who wants to come along?