The writer begins. Maybe the writer is you. Maybe it is I. Maybe it is all of us. They/she/he begins. It is inevitable. The words pour out. There are no ulterior motives, folks, this is writing for its own sake. It is the doing of it.
It, I tell you!
If only. The writer’s nagging conscience—like a squirrel on the fence in the backyard, saying, “I got your walnuts right here, buddy!”—beckons. We got freaking beckoning consciences now.
(The writer takes a sip of coffee.)
The writer had decided, in this incessant column called “Why Write?”—that should better yet be called, “Why Read This?”—to write about the sheer joy of writing in and of itself, with no worry about all the stuff external to the act, the dwindling prospects of fame and fortune, the accolades and amorous adventures.
But … no.
The writer has decided that the pen, while perhaps not mightier than the sword, is at least something he knows how to use. (Never much good in a fight, our writer, discretion the better part of valor and all that.)
The writer writes to destroy the enemy.
Look around. Are there not enemies everywhere?
Who is the enemy?
The parental units? The humanoids who did not return your amorous interest? That dreadful POTUS ____ [insert name of despised politician here]? The editor who rejected your work? The other editor who rejected your work? The loathsome bullies from middle school? Those people who don’t realize that being a writer is a noble avocation?
Just then, the phone rings.
The writer answers, with trepidation, of course, remembering at that very moment the scary movie enjoyed as a teen, where the protagonist finds out (I think around the end of act two) that the killer who’s been calling on the phone was in the house the whole time.
It’s just like that. Our situation.
How so? Because, dear reader, we have discovered who the real enemy is.
“I am my own worst enemy,” the writer admits. The doubt, the apathy, the incipient carpal tunnel syndrome. “I’ve been in the house this whole time.”
Invite the enemy down for a nice meal, dear reader/writer. And then, when the time is right:
DESTROY!
The only way to get done with all this writing is to write it, my friend. I know you can.