Why I Write: Let me count the ways…

(Signing one of my books, May 2014 — photo: Alicen Grey)

I write because I love to communicate but don't always feel comfortable doing it face-to-face.

I write because of my big sister. She's two years older than me and when she'd get home from first grade — being a bossy older sister — she'd sit me right down and force me to learn whatever lessons she had endured that day. As a result, I was reading proficiently at four years of age and promptly began my lifelong love affair with the written word.

I write because my mother would walk me to the Broadway branch of the Queensborough Public Library once a week and would help me carry home a giant bag of books each and every time. I loved books so much, I'd write book reports for my own enjoyment (although Mom would always patiently read them, too). 

When I received a fellowship in non-fiction literature from the New York Foundation for the Arts in 1997, I was asked to do public service in return for such an honor. I immediately opted to give a free talk about writing at that same Broadway branch of the Queensborough Public Library. My parents were there in early 1998 for the event — the only time they ever got to see me give a talk in person (they did watch me speak on C-SPAN once).

I write because my Dad never made me feel like I wasn't good enough or could never please him. After my Mom passed, my Dad would sometimes call me just to say “I’m proud of you.”

I write because my Uncle Butch (Mom's younger brother) decided to teach me vocabulary words when I was 6. He'd pick a multi-syllabic word, write it down, and give me the same assignment for each word: learn how to spell it and use it properly in a sentence within two days. When I did so correctly (as I always did), I'd get a nickel. 

I write because any time a teacher would present us with the choice between writing an essay and taking a multiple-choice test, I was always the only kid in the class who'd choose the essay. I eventually learned the word bullshit and would tell my baffled classmates: If they ask for three pages, you give them five. Even if you bullshit your way through the extra two pages, I never met a teacher who wouldn’t give you an "A" for the effort. Worked every time.

I write because I had several teachers who actively and consistently encouraged me. 

During my sophomore year in high school, my health education teacher assigned a year-end term paper. I chose the topic of basic hygiene. I got an A but after handing back the papers, my health ed teacher pulled me aside with a favor. "Would you mind if I kept your term paper?" he asked. "Why?" I wondered. "I'd like to use it to teach next year's class." How could I say no? 

I write thanks to Mrs. Georas, the teacher who taught "creative writing" during my senior year in high school. I loved writing so much that I wrote short stories for myself in addition to at least three of my friends in the class (getting an A for all of us).

I believe Mrs. Georas caught on but she didn't seem to mind. As a quid pro quo of sorts, she asked if she could photocopy all of my stories to pass out to other faculty members for their reading pleasure. I'm guessing she also took much of the credit for teaching me skills… but that's cool.

Of all my teachers, I can thank Mrs. Flood most for motivating and inspiring me. She taught a class called "Short Story" and took special joy in discussing the themes of the stories I'd hand in. I remember her once watching me goof around with my delinquent friends in the high school hallway until she'd had enough.

"Why do you hang out with these troublemakers?" she bellowed. "You could be the next Hemingway." My friends mocked me for weeks after that and, at that moment, I was mortified. But I never forgot the sincerity in Mrs. Flood's voice and how she indirectly (or directly) defined for me the responsibility of a writer to find their voice and vocation.   

I write what I write because I look at the world — our puzzling human culture — without delusion or denial. I write what I write because I choose to see without blinders what this society all too readily accepts as “normal.”

To borrow from and paraphrase Alice Walker, I write what I write as a way of “paying rent” for living on this beleaguered planet.

I could go on but I’ll close with just one more reason why I write: 

When I walk down the street I don’t wanna be considered a shopper or a tourist or a consumer or an employee or a cog in a profit-driven machine.

I wanna be a bold explorer — striving to witness, experience, and discover everything within the vast realm of my own unique imagination, curiosity, and creativity.

In fact, I don’t even wanna be considered a noun. I wanna be a verb, an evolving process — a natural resource, if you will. 

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What do you create and why?