31
Jan
Write On! – On Writing Revisited Pt. 1
In January 2018, I began a series of blog posts titled "On Writing: Why I Write" that would end up spanning three years. Initially, I envisioned a series that would discuss the "what, when, why, where, and how" of my personal journey with writing. It was meant to be an honest appraisal of all elements that had led me to that point as a writer. A lot of things impacted the pause between Part Two in March 2018 and Part Three in February 2021, and while I'm glad I finished writing it, I'm not sure it ended up being what I thought of when I sat down to write that series. The first two parts read and feel different to me, than the final five parts do, and that's understandable considering all the things that happened between 2018 and 2021. Having said that, I began thinking about the best way to bring those old articles from the previous blog, which is still up by the way, over to Write On! but I didn't want to simply republish some of the more personal posts. I decided to rewrite them, from a 2025 perspective. I'll remove some of the background and link to the earlier posts, but largely this will be a new series with the same title. Hopefully, a more concise series that talks about writing and my experiences as a professional writer, a published writer, and moreover someone who values writing in a very personal way.
Considering the original series was subtitled "Why I Write" for the first five posts, I think starting with the "why" makes the most sense. I won't dig back as far as the original posts dug. If you want to read my "origin" story, it's linked above. Rather, I'll discuss the why in terms of why I'm writing in 2025. Writing in general seems to be a form of communication that is slowly slipping into recesses of the human consciousness. As more dynamic means of communication are popularized, writing slips further into "work" spaces. Sure people still "write for fun", but that's less and less the focus of the form. I find myself falling into this same pattern in my writing, and while there are talks of A.I. LLMs (large language models) taking jobs from those who still write for work, I personally think that's still pretty far in the future. I can't remember the last time I wrote for pleasure, it's been months at least and probably more than six months which is worrisome because I do feel reinvigorated when I'm writing outside of work. It resets my vocabulary and refreshes my brain.
Working on this new website has taken a lot of my mental energy, and required a lot of writing some of it in HTML and CSS two things that are very taxing for me because I don't have a background in coding it's just something I've learned over the course of my life. I still take some pleasure in writing for work both in the strict product language development and in the more esoteric "work" posts and segments in the newsletter. I try to put enough flare in the work writing to keep it more personal and varied. It would be very easy to just carbon copy every different product, but that feels cold and robotic not the way we try to communicate as a company or how I like to communicate on a personal level. I guess the "why" right now is because it's one of the biggest parts of my job. Whether it's writing blog posts, creating product pages, writing Facebook ads, or writing correspondence to our collaborators or vendors; the majority of my written communication is done through the Karas template. And while I try to keep a personal side to things, I've only recently started attributing the writing to me (Paul), mostly because there was confusion from people not knowing who they were responding to and I was asked to "put my name on things" as it were.
I still get some measure of wellness from writing, though most of that comes from journaling at the request of my VA therapist. This often feels more like work than writing at my place of employment. It's difficult to be introspective, vulnerable, congratulatory, positive, or any of the other temperaments my therapists asks me to delve into when I'm journaling. But I try my best to push through those tasks and do it with a mindset of finding something good out of each exercise. Writing poetry, short stories, or long form has become a thing of the past. I think it's been over a year since I've written any of those methods, possibly even longer. I have thought about sitting in on a class at ASU that one of my old English professors teaches, but that requires being free when I am needed at work.
Ultimately, writing for pleasure via poems and shorts stories is still a major part of who I am as a writer. There's been a pause for a variety of reasons, but I've paused writing in the past for years, nearly a decade at one point, and later took up my pen once more. I know that as long as I have the ability to write, the desire to write will be there and will surface eventually. I keep my writing muscles toned by writing as dynamically for work as I possibly can. I think that has paid dividends as far as retaining the skill and vocabulary someone needs if they intend on writing as any career. Hopefully, I'm not deluding myself. I think it's important for people do identify why they write, but it's not really a requirement to delve so deep into the why that it becomes a distraction. Just in writing this post and re-reading my previous series on this topic, it felt like a fruitless exercise for quite some time. I put off writing this post because it lacked true intention, and felt obligatory in a way that came across meaningless. I'm not a big fan of meaningless communication, that seems like a waste of my time and yours, and I didn't want this to end up being one of those posts.
Why I write is most likely due to being a human with an ever evolving sense of place, self, skills, abilities, insights, and so much more. The evolution of my being is what drives me to continue to write. Oftentimes, thoughts and ideas that pop up when I'm thinking about stories, movies, experiences, or things push me to a place where I NEED to write. I can't comprehend going through life lacking the desire and ability to communicate via the method of writing. When I consider that, it feels like I would be existing without one or more of my senses. Writing is so very personal to me, even writing a list of tasks for work, and that's not likely to change. As much as I'm evolving, I'm still a bit set in my ways when it comes to the form of communication.
I'm not sure how much more of this series I'll end up writing. As I contemplate the previous series, I'll evaluate my goals and what thoughts I have in 2025 about On Writing as a whole. This may be the final chapter of this series, though if it is I'll write a short epilogue closing it all out and letting you know. Thank you for reading my latest meandering post on why I write, hopefully it made you consider something about writing that is helpful for you.
