Why I write

Going through these courses, I've been prompted on many occasions to reflect on aspects of my writing. There have been broad, educative questions like: How do I write? Who do I write for? What do I write? Why do I choose to write this or that?

The one question that never really comes up is why. Why do I write? I wanted to address this issue, to get it down in some solid form, perhaps to deny myself at some later date some sanctimonious prattle I might use to justify why I haven't fed the cat, or marked those papers, or why I didn't look up from my laptop and at least afford my husband some recognition when he came home disheartened and in need of a chat.

This isn't really a reflection as much as a confession. And I don't want the reader to infer that I feel all writers are like me. I can't speak for them, only myself.

Perhaps I write some good things. Perhaps my readers gain satisfaction or insight or a feeling of fellowship when they read what I write. It's not that I disavow the product of my labours, or belittle them. But the behind the product is motive for the production, and I have to admit that it's wholly selfish.

I write for ego gratification. I'm not entirely sure I can put into words exactly by what mechanism writing gives me this gratification, but I think my need for a reader as an integral part of my writing process does give me some hint. I once wrote, on the discussion board of my writers' list, that when I write erotica, I have a sense of having sex with every one who reads it; the fact that I can get into their mind and engage their erotic imagination is a central part of why I write. So, pulling out into the broader landscape, I write as an act of promiscuity.

This is not as sophisticated an act as I might like; images of males in rut frantically mounting any available female do seem uncomfortably apt. The DNA of my ideas eagerly injects itself into as many receptive minds as possible, to be mixed with the readers thought DNA and, by way of all that chromosomal crossing over, and the magic of how all the dominant and recessive genes express themselves, something new is born - part me, part reader. This is all the more apt because of what I write - although I don't think it would be different if I wrote something other than erotica. I'm having a very gratifying congress with you right now, at this very moment. I do hope you don't mind. Soon, the cells of our hybrid creation will start to divide and multiply. I thank you in advance for being the one to carry the embryo.

Of course, I've carried a lot of these hybrid embryos myself, which is why I'm not too concerned that this is going to be an undue hardship for you. I've carried the children of Camus and Bronte, of Heidegger and St. Thomas Aquinas, of Austen and Lao Tse. As a reader, I have been mother to thousands and thousands of hybrid children of the writers I have read. Most of them turned out okay.

I don't want to hide anymore behind protestations of altruism or addiction. At the same time, I believe my reason for writing informs you that I'm no misanthrope. I would not seek congress with so many minds if I didn't at a very basic level, love humanity. But I don't do it for humanity. I do it for myself, to extend my ego outwards, into both time and space, with a view to immortality.

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