‘You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.’ Thus said Ray Bradbury, and truer words have never been said.
For writers and authors, writing isn’t just a profession. It is a way of life. With every word they write, every story they tell, they hope to change the world a little bit. They may not always be successful, but it is an ideal to strive for. For some, it’s just about the unquenchable thirst to tell a story, to give the characters within them life, to release the tale to the world and set it free. For others, it is a way to add some happiness to the world. In an era where we often feel inconsequential and unable to affect great change individually, this is their way to bring about a small change – reader by reader – and in the process, if they’re able to provide just a tiny sliver of mirth and happiness to a reader, if they are able to provide reader’s with an escape from the mundane, dark reality in the pages of a book, then all the more better.
It isn’t only about affecting worldwide change, it is about providing small moments of happiness to individual readers. Sometimes, in the process, their stories may tug at the unified consciousness of the world and plant seeds of magic, joy, and of the importance of doing the right thing instead of the easy thing. Sometimes, it could make an entire generation read. And isn’t all of this a magic unto its own?
Often, the passion to write comes from having read and having been inspired by stories and novels. It isn’t a career or a profession as much as a calling. A need to write. To sit down and breathe life into a whole new world. To feel the joy of creating something out of nothing, the mirth of letting their imaginative go wild and flow.
Then there are those of us who write to taste life twice; in the moment and in retrospect.
Often, it is a way to rail against the world. To document the perils of reality through the lives of characters and weave a story around it. Other times, it is a way to showcase the greys of the world, and portray the many moral quandaries we face in life through the pages of a book, a way to put the reader in the shoes of the writer, to instruct, to make them understand.
And then there are some of us who are megalomaniacs with a god complex and delusions of grandeur. What better way to find a release for that than to create worlds and be a literal creator who can move the lives of characters and nudge them in a myriad directions?
As Toni Morrison said, ‘If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.’
