#54: It's Good for a Writer to Ask Why

When’s the last time you asked yourself "Why?" Why am I pursuing writing? Why am I writing this particular project? Why am I working on this book proposal or replying to this email or spending time over here on Facebook when I should be finishing an article to meet a deadline—and why “should” I be finishing that article? Asking why about why we write helps us get to the root of our life motivation. Why Do You Write? And why do you write what you write? Asking this from time to time—exploring it, maybe even through a quick daily review—helps us stay on track and avoid shiny object syndrome, because if we know the overall reason why we write, we can say no to the opportunities and requests that come up, realizing they don’t fit with our why. We can have multiple answers to the question of why we write: We can write for our own pleasure, to express our thoughts clearly, to get the stories and ideas out. Maybe we write because we want to share those stories and ideas with others, or we want fame and fortune, or we want to preserve details about events or to make an impact on the world. A lot of writing life questions flow from bigger questions and bigger issues, so although I’m not a life coach, I often end up talking with clients about higher-level issues in their lives. If you spend some time pondering this “Why?” question at a more existential level or from a values angle, determining your main values as you try to figure out your purpose, you may find clarity for a lot of areas in your life, not just your writing. But that could be overwhelming, and since people meet up with me to talk about writing, writing is a good place to start asking why. Writing is such a revealing process, whether we write privately or publicly, we might as well start by asking “Why write?” and let that start to reveal other ideas about the "why" of our lives overall. Why do you write? Be honest about your answer. If you really just want to make money from writing, record that somewhere, like in a journal, and own it. Knowing that you want to make money—even earn a living—from your writing will help you make practical decisions; instead of submitting essays to literary journals, for example, you might focus on building a business doing technical or corporate writing. If your compelling reason for writing is to contribute memorable art without regard for financial gain, knowing that is your “why” will help you make decisions about how you funnel your creative energy. If your “why” is to gain popularity in a particular genre, you’ll study the market and focus in on that goal, and decisions will be far easier than if you generally think you want to write because it satisfies your creative impulse. Maybe you write for fun, to make people laugh, to reveal an issue you’ve seen and want to bring to light. You want to help people, entertain people, touch people, connect with people. The Evolution of Your Why As you write, your “why” may evolve, and that’s okay. It doesn’t mean your principles have crumpled or your dreams are dying. It may mean you’re discovering new dreams and see new possibilities you may not have even known existed! In the year 1997, who knew blogging would be a thing? In 2000, who imagined someone could write a novel or memoir, image by image on Instagram? Maybe these new possibilities have awakened a new “why”: to lasso current technology and playfully discover new ways to interact with people, writing tighter and clearer poetry and prose. You might not have even thought like that in the early stages of your career because you couldn’t have imagined it. You might have looked around at what existed—books, magazines, newspapers—and worked within those constraints. Why This Particular Project?