Why I Write
And why I’m deciding to do it on Medium.
I have always loved to write. Writing is like breathing. When I inhale words through reading, I must exhale words through writing. If I don’t do this, emotions will clog up inside me like water behind a dam, and that dam will eventually break in a painful or humiliating way. Essentially, the process of writing for me is the process of having a mini-break down every day, so I avoid a big meltdown later on. This is really important to me, and, if you’re on Medium, I’m guessing it is for you too.
I decided to join Medium because I have always had a lot to say, but I’ve never known where to say it. I’ve worked on drafts of creative writing projects throughout my whole life but nothing has ever come to fruition. I even doubted my passion for creative writing enough to major in something totally different in college (International Affairs). But by my junior year, when it was too late to change, I realized I had made a huge mistake. I tacked on a Creative Writing minor to make the most out of the rest of my time in school.
My creative writing professors are some of the most inspiring people I have ever met. They are all accomplished writers, some with books on the New York Times Bestseller list. But more important to me than that: they are all, without a doubt, amazing humans, free thinkers, and incredibly inspirational. They taught me how to think critically beyond the realm of academia. By definition, creative writing is all encompassing. So, my creative writing professors not only taught me about writing, they taught me about life. This is what I really needed.
I think, as a senior in high school picking my college major in advance of attending, I was drawn to International Relations as a substitute for Creative Writing because both have a lot to do with human nature. As the writer Elizabeth Strout said, in her novel My Name is Lucy Barton, “As a writer, it is my job to report on the human condition.” Despite having a lot to do with politics and economics, the International Affairs major also has to do with human nature. Countries are people. It’s said all the time. Watching world nations interact with each other is just like watching a tense dinner party. Except, instead of one person holding back a secret involving one of the other guests, a few guests have nuclear warheads in their back pockets. That’s where it got a little too political for me. And so, I’ve come back to writing.
I’ve joined Medium because I have a lot to say. Self-publishing seems to be a good way to do that, but I also want to cater my writing to publications and get practice submitting to them. I think submitting to publications, and inevitably facing the rejection that all writers face at some point, will teach me a lot about life too. Maybe learning about life is not all in the writing itself.
