"Why We Write"

“What Writing Is”

By Cody Williams

 

1.

            Before I begin to discuss with you what writing is, I would like to explain how I got into the wonderful art of writing. As long as I can remember I have always had a special love for the craft of writing. That’s a given. Throughout my educational career, many people have commented on my writing. I can even remember teachers raving about my writing as far back as elementary school. Now, I didn’t think much of it at the time. I liked to do it, and I was pretty decent at it, but nothing else ever crossed my mind.

            I remember being very small when I began to write. I even wrote a children’s story. I believe it was called “Fish” and it was about the different species of fish in the sea. The story had many parallels to Dr. Seuss.

            It wasn’t until middle school when I actually got to like it. I remember my 7^th and 8^th grade English teacher telling me that she was very impressed by my writing and she wouldn’t be surprised if I grew up to become a journalist for NASCAR. I had no interest in doing that and I still don’t honestly. But during this time is when I really began to like reading. It was during this time that I leant of now one of my favorite authors Edgar Allan Poe. His stories and poems really spoke volumes to me and I really learnt a lot about his tragic life.

            I was in middle school when I stumbled upon one of my mom’s bookshelves. On the book shelve was a Signet paperback edition of IT written by the man who quickly became one of my biggest influences and favorite authors, Stephen King. I blew through the novel in about a week’s time. The novel was huge but I just couldn’t seem to put it down. When I finished the novel I instantly began to look around the book sections of convenient stores looking for other novels by King. His writing was wonderfully dark and inspiring to me. That’s when I really began to write my main area of focus now, fiction. I wanted to write many things like Stephen King. The horror I felt when reading his work was just too good to pass up.

            I don’t really know where this dark talent came from, but I have always loved scaring people. I live in the basement whenever I am home for vacation the area behind the stairs is open allowing me to stand behind them and see when somebody is walking down the stairs. I always loved to turn the lights off making it seem like nobody was down there. Most of the time it would be my brother walking down the dark stairway looking for me. I loved to hide behind the stairs and in total silence reach out and grab him by the leg. I always found joy in that…and I think he did a little too.

            I have accepted the fact that I can be a strange person. For starters, while many people go to shrinks or therapy for their recurring nightmares and pray for them to stop, I simply can’t get enough of them. I savor the nightmares and write them down. Whenever I wake up in the middle of the night with perspirations dripping from my face and my body shivering with fear, I know that it’s a damn good idea. If it scares me, it will defiantly scare others.

 

2.

            What is writing? If you ask that question to 100 different writers, the probability of you getting 100 different answers is 99.99%. To me, writing is my drug. It is my own self-hypnosis. There is just something about sitting down for a couple of hours and playing make believe.

            I wrote a story on here once titled “Chasing Grace”. The story is the farthest thing from horror I had ever written. One day my roommate looked over to me and said, “Why do you write all theses gross and horrifying things? Why can’t you write about unicorns and rainbows? Why can’t you write a story with a happy ending?” Dumfounded that he asked this I replied, “I could write something like that if I wanted to.” So I did. I did it almost to prove that I can.

            Anyway, at the end of the story, one of the main characters, a writer himself, states that writers never have to grow up. They never have to stop dreaming. This really spoke to me and I think it did many writers.

            Writing is my escape. Whenever I am going through a tuff time, I turn on my laptop, or even grab a pen and paper if my laptop isn’t handy, and write. It’s simply what I do. I have a strong love for it and I can never see giving it up.

            I also wrote a story once called “No Longer With Us” which is more up my ally so to speak. In this story a college writer is going through a very tuff time so he does the only logical thing…he retreats into his own writing by writing himself in the story. This is very metaphorical for what really happens. Each character we write about is some part of us to some extent. I am a strong believer in characterization. Especially being a horror writer, if the reader’s don’t care about the characters, they won’t be scared when the horrible things happen to them.

            Writers become characters in their own writing they write. We do it because we love to do it, but we also do it to escape from our busy everyday lives. We are in a trance when we write. Every time we write, we go on a free vacation.

Copyright 2014 by Cody Williams

Courtesy of TTP Entertainment

Author's Note

I probably could have written more, but I tried to keep it brief. The longer the On Writing is the more bullshit that is included. I hope you all like it.

-CW

Reviews

[Brittany Zedalis]

╰☆╮The first thing that caught my eye about this was the mention of Poe. It made me smile because just a week or so ago, I had to write an essay in one of my college classes about what got me into writing, and in my essay I mentioned that Poe was the first poet whose poetry really spoke to me and got me interested in writing on my own. Stephen King is also my favorite horror/thriller author, haha. You speak volumes of truth by saying that writing is an escape and that we writers do it because we love to. Very, very true.╰☆╮

[Cody Williams]

Thanks for reading! I've got a short story coming out soon and in my author biography that my publisher wrote it says "author of over 200 short stories". What that means to me is 200 different universes. That's what writing is to me. I sit down and just slip into those characters and that world and live there for a little while.

-CW

[Brittany Zedalis]

That is a wonderful way to look at writing. I applaud you.

[SquinklaPsyOps]

Fantastic in the true sense of the words. Soothing, gentle images and wonderful language.

[Cody Williams]

Thanks for reading!

-CW

[TL Boehm]

writers become characters in what they write. Yes they do. I always enjoy reading the "why" of a writer.

[Cody Williams]

Thanks for reading TL!

-CW

[Baby Ricochet]

Well now we know why Cody writes. I haven't been writing lately cause I bought a digital multi track recorder from a pawn shop for 80 bucks so I've been screwing around with that instead.

[dw817]

Rico, I'm curious. What are you using your recorder for ?

[Cody Williams]

Thanks for reading!

-CW

[Baby Ricochet]

I play guitar some and a little bass

[dw817]

I use mine to record dreams in the night. You'll have to post your guitar playing sometime Rico so we can hear it ! :)

[Aethereal]

Perhaps we write because mappings of the empirical reality around us are stored within our brains as neurological symbols. Writing is just a natural extension of the symbolic mappings that evolve within our brain. Speech and writing go hand and hand. I noted the following:

“pretty descent” might be exchanged for “reasonably good”.

By “leant” do you mean learned (learnt)? “of now” perhaps “of who is now”
‘learnt” is the British way of saying learned.

“That’s when” perhaps: “ It was during this time in my life when I began to delve in my present area of focus, fiction. …”

“I wanted to write many things like Stephen King.” perhaps, “ I wanted to express myself using Stephen King’s writing style.”

“this dark talent came from” perhaps, “his dark talent came from”

I live in the basement whenever I am home for vacation the area …” perhaps, “I lived in the basement whenever I was home for vacation where the area behind the stairs was open allowing me to stand behind them and se when somebody was walking down the stairs.”

“I always found joy in that …and I think did a little too.” perhaps, “I always found joy in that … and I think that he felt the same way.”

“go to shrinks or therapy” perhaps “require therapy”

“One day my roommate looked over to me and said,” perhaps, “One day my roommate tapped me on the shoulder, and said,”

“”Why do you write all theses gross…”” perhaps “Why do you write so much about gross …”

“Writers become characters in their own writing they write.” perhaps Writers often enter their literary creations as main characters.

[Cody Williams]

Thanks for reading!

-CW

[Mark]

'IT' is my second favorite of Stephen King (behind the entire Dark Tower series). Reading is fundamental to being a good writer. Recently, I read Don Quixote and was totally blown away that book written hundreds of years ago could still be fresh and mind capturing in today's world.

Writing is about the story. There are different forms, but essentially it is story. We humans have loved stories, I think, as soon as we were able to be self aware.

The more stories we absorb, the better we become at telling our own I think.

[Cody Williams]

Exactly! Thanks for reading Mark!

-CW

[Dayran]

Its nice to get to know your impulse for writing. Writing does create a perspective on issues ... that presents a certain view of situations. Very often the meaning to anything is found in the story that surrounds the event ... not what people apparently say it is. Nice ...

[Cody Williams]

Thanks for reading Dayran!

-CW

[Lyn Anderson]

A nice essay. A few minor errors. If you would like me to correct them for you, I will, you just never seem to comment on the errors so I stopped pointing them out, by and large.

[Cody Williams]

I would like that. Thanks for reading KL!

-CW

[Lyn Anderson]

okay. In a PM

[Sami Khalil]

Wow. This was wonderful to share your personal journey, influences and inspirations. In my library...:)..................

[Cody Williams]

Many thanks Sami!

-CW

[Sami Khalil]

You are welcome...Any time...:).................