So I’m currently reading FanGirl by Rainbow Rowell (one of the nine I have chosen to read for my Young Adult Lit class) and I’ve enjoyed what I have read. The main character is a college freshmen and she has worked her way in to a Junior level English course. It’s a Fiction writing course (If only my college offered such a thing – well they offer a Creative writing course, but I don’t think that is exactly the same). On the first day of class, the professor of this course says “Let’s start with a question that doesn’t really have an answer… Why do we write fiction?” (Rowell 21). Does this question really not have an answer? Or is it because the answer is different for each person that there is no answer?
This scene had me thinking about and asking myself why it is that I write. To be honest, I have no idea why I write. I say that and then I think about what I experience when I write. Yes, ultimately I want to be published but that isn’t why I write. The goal of my writing is not publication. It’s just something that I’d like to happen. Writing is a form of therapy for me. It allows me to release what is trapped inside. But that doesn’t really apply to writing fiction. In my opinion, writing fiction is a different beast than personal writing. Sometimes writing fiction and personal writing can overlap, but that does not make them the same.
Evan after all of this pondering of the question, I still have no idea why it is that I write. I know that I love it and it brings me great joy to share such stories. But is that the reason why I write? Maybe so, but at the moment, I don’t know.
Until next time… Kara