Why I Write

Monday, November 7th, 10pm, 2016, Somewhere in the West of Ireland.

Dear Reader,

How ironic it is that I sit here staring at a blinking cursor and a blank page, with no idea how to put it all into words.

Why do I write?

Well, today I write for therapy; because I missed my bus home, and before that, I cut my tongue on a lollipop in French class. I didn’t know that was possible, or that it should have been something to look out for and to possibly avoid; but if I’d feared cutting my tongue on lollipops before, then I might as well have been afraid of getting a papercut from a pair of socks.

Well, maybe that’s what I get for eating in class.

And maybe I’m not writing today because of the bus or the lollipop, but because they collectively acted as the straw that broke the camel’s back in a desert made of college essays. And maybe it’s more fun to melodramatically describe such incidents than it is to write about this featureless wasteland.

Uuuhh I sigh to the sound of myself,

because really

in the grand scheme of things,

I write,

because at passionate times like these when I write about writing, my prose becomes a

poem,

in free verse,

because oftentimes I want every word to hold merit; for each word to stand on its

own.

I write,

because every character embodies how much I love people, like the little girl with the x shaped scar on her forehead and the pink-haired imaginary friend. I adopt the mannerisms of life-long friends and people passing by me in real day to day life; Grimace-turned-smiles and flamboyant hand gestures painted to the page from my hand to create a real character, even if it’s a mongrel breed of my niece’s smile and a cool hat I saw a guy wear in the street.

Still, this hypothetical character could be real,

so then, I can imagine them in countless situations. I get to know them.

I pity their weaknesses and love them for their flaws.

I know them now from the inside out; so then if ever I’m craving pasta at midnight, I can’t help but think that Laoise, the protagonist of my play, would really get at me to look after myself more and not to eat carbohydrates at such a late hour of the night.

And then,

if I’m chatting with a friend in a café and I say something obscure and funny before realising that it was something a character of mine had said before, I will make sure not to take credit for it, because it was my character who said that, and not me.

And it’s now that I ask myself why?

-          Why wouldn’t I write?

A fictional child character of mine turned eight on October 29^th of this year, and back in April I cried to my Mam on the phone because I was mourning my characters after having finished my their first draft.

And hell yeah, I’m aware that the entire ordeal sounds hella crazy,

But,

I write

because I created characters, worlds, and people who could be real from absolutely

nothing;

Stories came from the cool hat I saw a guy wear in the street; a poem evolved from the realisation that I really like ‘Z’ sounds; A protagonist sprang from a single word scribbled onto a napkin in a café, that over time, turned into a one act play.

Those possibilities that hang from a pen when I bring it to paper are tainted with the most amazing feeling. It’s like the warmth of my fingertips when holding a cup of moroccan tea; the world is literally in my hands and I can morph it into anything I want.

All because of one little light bulb idea moment – One little song getting lodged in my head and inspiring a novel, all in one day.

I write,

because I like the feeling, and I’m grateful that I like the feeling because for me, writing is not a choice.

It has just always been what I have to do, and exactly what I need.

So yes,

Maybe I wrote today because I needed the therapy, because I missed my bus home and I cut my tongue on a lollipop – the straw that broke the camel’s back in a desert made of college essays. But maybe I wrote because I missed writing and you know,

Words,

They’re pretty cool at the best of times. ;)

Ciao,

Madame Mayreed.