Why I Write

So I have this pretty ordinary About Me page. Honestly, who likes writing those things? I should start a blogging carnival where we all write one another a kick-ass ‘About Me’ page. I think everyone would be happy with that. Because as much time as l might spend writing about myself on a day-to-day basis, when it comes to boiling down my mind, body and soul into a punchy couple of paragraphs, I kind of suck.

I got a rejection letter from the Smart Home Family today. Which is not unexpected. After meeting a few people who had also applied, I was starting to feel entirely under-qualified for such an endeavour. I was disappointed anyway. It would have been super-cool to live in a green house, control everything with an iphone and blog about it. I might be just as disappointed about not getting an iphone as I am about the entire project. I have iphone envy.

Thank you for responding to the Smart Home Family tender. We received a large number of high quality responses and unfortunately your application did not make the short-list. for interview but has been put into a reserve list.

Your application was read and reviewed by several members of our internal team. We noted the quality of your application and  appreciate the effort that went into applying and your patience in awaiting a response while we reviewed the 160 application received.

We expect to select the successful applicant soon but  we will inform you if the process is reopened.

Once again thank you for your application

Regards,

I love these rejection letters. It’s nice of them to be nice about it. But really it’s just code for “sorry, you’re not good enough”. I hold on to all my rejection letters, as though they were trophies. Because in my mind, one day I will be able to look back on them with a certain amount of smugness. They will be part of a Gone with the Wind anecdote. Oh yes, I have delusions of grandeur. You haven’t heard the Gone with the Wind anecdote? It was rejected by 36 publishers and went on to become one of the best selling books of all time. And it’s not just delusion on my part. Ok, a good part of it is delusion. The other (smaller) part is the necessary ego armour that you have to have. If you ever expect to be able to put your work out there and have it rejected and not end up in the fetal position with your doona. Still, I can be smug now about the SHF thing because clearly they’ve missed out on one of the most photogenic children on the planet. But it does put me in mind of why I write in the first place.

I write because the word spill out of me. I have always told stories, even as a child. I write for therapy, for closure, for love of language and clarity and imagination. I didn’t really chose writing, it chose me. And although I haven’t always written on the page, I have always done so in my mind.

I remember seeing the Author of ‘The Reader’ interviewed on Oprah. In the story a 15 year old boy was in a sexual relationship with an older woman. Oprah asked him about the controversy surrounding the age of the boy. The author laughed a little and said that it was only a controversy in the United States and hadn’t even made a ripple in Europe. But she persisted, saying if he didn’t intend for their to be controversy surrounding the characters sexual relationship, why not just make him 18. Again, the author laughed. “But he wasn’t 18, he was 15.” I loved him deeply and passionately for saying that. It’s exactly how I always felt about fiction. I didn’t write the characters or invent them, they were just floating around and I gave them a voice. Mostly they wrote me. And sometimes my characters even pissed me off, because they went in a direction that I hadn’t intended. But I was powerless to do anything about it. The characters were who they were. I couldn’t change it.

Writing is my greatest companion, the only thing that I would ever surrender myself completely to, without thought or hesitation. But mostly, I just love the feeling of looking at a marriage of words and knowing in my gut that they are exactly as they should be.

Tagged as: blogging, Writing