The Great List of Why I Want to Write and Why I Don't

Why I Want to Write
-Based on my experience with poetry and blogging, it seems to provide better therapy for me than anything.

-No matter how many times I tell myself I'm through with writing, I seem to come back to wanting to write again and again.

-I think I have something to say and something to add.

-It makes me mad that I don't write.

-I am under the possible delusion that if I actually DO write, I will be successful at it.

-I have thoughts.

-I have these ideas that I think would make good stories, all it would take would be to write it down.

-Writing seems to be the only thing in my life which I am absolutely committed to getting perfect the first time, every time....which is why I never write. I need to write, to get over my fear of writing. And it NEEDS to be terrible at the start.

-I often feel so inspired by the works of others, it seems like a waste to not write.

-It's the only thing I'm good at. I've got nothing else going for me but writing.

-I've picked up books with plots I think are awesome, only to be disappointed by them because they didn't live up to their own story.

-I believe I can do just as good, if not better, as many writers today.

-I believe writing to be the only thing going for me that will fulfill not just my perceived desires and dreams, but also the ACTUAL desires and dreams I may not realize yet.

-The tools for writing are cheap, damn near free at worst.

-It is the best way I know how to communicate.


What I Think Keeps Me From Writing
-It has to be perfect the first time, every time. Intellectually, I know this to be virtually impossible, but the thought that my words aren't fucking golden the first time around, that I would have to edit and revise is just nuts to me.

-A childhood event where I wrote the opening scene of a story that was very very graphic and vulgar (at least, considering my age at the time) and my mother found out about it and more or less instilled a deep fear in me that what I write needs to be acceptable to everyone and offensive to no one. I have never in my life been acceptable or inoffensive to everyone. I have always been a thorn in someone's side, one way or another. So, I don't write because I know I will offend someone and/or no one will like it, so why bother in the first place? I hate that I blame my mother, but it's where the blame lies whether I want it to or not. It happened, it's the truth.

-Energy. I don't have lots of it in the first place, and writing definitely takes it out of me rather quickly because I seem utterly incapable of not infusing lots of very deep personal emotions in what I write.

-Stress. Sure, I am a single male with no children or pets, but I work full-time, and with my low-energy and uncertainty about whether or not I can take care of myself now that I'm living on my own ON TOP OF my diagnosed stress disorder (even though medicated) can lead to me being very tired after a day's work.

-I'm one person out of 7 billion or so on this planet. Who would give a fuck what I have to say? Really give a fuck? This is most likely the thing that keeps me from writing the least. But it's still there.

-I want to write scary stories, but I'm probably the least scary person on the planet. Not only that, but I look for the humor or the less-scary in scary stories, so my ideas are always softened by that.

-Writing probably won't become a full-time job for me for a very, very long time, if at all. And I've never been good at keeping with things when I think they're a waste of time.