Why I Write

Heading into New Year, I thought to take a break from disability related stuff and write something about another favorite topic of mine, which is writing.

When people choose a profession, it usually comes with a question attached: why you want to do that? The answers are the most disparate: to help people, for the money, for the prestige or, simply, because you like that job.

So, I’ve also been wondering – sometimes – why I wanted to be a writer. I considered other professions, surely, I tried with teaching, with selling stuff, I took business classes. I kept my mind open because I needed to have plan B and plan C and plan D (I’m an anxious person, don’t judge me), but nothing really stuck for too long, I never did any of this stuff with passion or waking up thrilled to get the job done.

The only thing I really enjoyed doing, that made me excited for a new day, was this, writing. Whatever that was, fanfictions, poems, stories, this blog, I even enjoyed writing my thesis for the International Cooperation master degree. I started crafting stories and putting words on pages when I learnt the alphabet, my head was always stuck in books as a child. And I’ve always been a lonely child, never knew how to talk to people in real life, but definitely knew how to talk to my characters. This still holds true.

I sometimes can’t stand the presence of people around me and I can get irritated when someone interrupts my writing streak. I believe that, whoever choses an artsy profession, it doesn’t really come as a choice but rather as a calling. You don’t become an artist because it makes you rich or easily successful. Let’s be honest, the % of artists — writers, musicians, painters, photographers and so on — who are rich and famous thanks to their art is very small. We hear certain big names and think that it’s easy, you just need that talent. But for every big name there are 1000 of others who are barely known and who still have to work a day job to make the ends meet. Still, they keep doing art, losing sleep and even sanity.

Because the art profession is about being stubborn.

And I can be very stubborn. So I keep writing because it’s the only thing I know how to do, it’s the only thing that keeps me afloat right now and depriving myself from that would be like depriving myself from water or air or food. Maybe I’m delusional or something and nothing will really come out of it but this is what I am and, even if I went to open a shop, I’d still be writing at the end of the day.

I hope 2024 brings me some development in the writing process. That’s the only thing I ask.

What about you?

Read my previous post: “Dignity of Risk”: a Staple In Disability Rights Movement