Why I Write

This week, writers were invited to enter the Editor Unleashed/Smashwords “Why I Write” essay contest.

Here is my essay entry on why I write.

The powerbroker

Words can be more powerful than a hammer to a nail, warmer than a lover’s
touch on a cool night, more lasting than a treasured memory.

That is why I write.

Publishing my words is like casting a net into an ocean. If I
do it well, I will capture my reader, hold them, enrapture them and leave them
breathless.

I know this, because I am a reader myself.

As a child, I would often find myself transported to the classroom at Whyteleafe School, watching with horror as Elizabeth got up to all manner of mischief as her story played out in Enid Blyton’s Naughtiest Girl series.

As a young adult, the lower depths of my stomach stirred with strange, new feelings as I sat alone in my room poring over forbidden love stories.

Now, as a mother and as a woman who has experienced the loss of loved ones, I choke back tears when protagonists discover life can be brutal.

That is why I write.

Of course, that is the stuff of make-believe: fiction. One can put down a sad story and take comfort from the fact that while the book probably has the basis of truth in the writer’s own experiences, it remains a tale of fancy.

Journalism, reportage, recounts are not make-believe. This is the genre where writers don’t have control over their characters, don’t have license to move them this way or that, make them do this or that.

This is where words can truly be powerful.

That is why I write.

As a journalist, it is my job to report the facts, tell the story, make the readers understand. I am meant to be impartial, unbiased, sangfroid in the face of someone else’s misfortune, tragedy or unbridled joy.

This is where the challenge, for me, lies. It takes true skill to show someone compassion, to empathise, to understand, but at the same time push for more detail, the emotive hook on which to hang the story so readers will buy the newspaper.

Writers may not be surgeons who mend broken bodies; they may not be aid-workers who breathe life and hope into the hearts of refugees; they may not feel that they ever truly make a difference.

But writers are an integral link in the chain of education; they help foster imagination in children too young to call on life experiences; they hold everyone accountable by their ability to report one’s indiscretions and bad behaviour.

That is why I write.

I feel that every writer’s contribution is powerful, emotive and lasting.

That is why I write.

So, why do YOU write?

For more information about Pamela Wilson or WriteSmart, log on to http://www.writesmart.com.au/