I write because I like it

but why do I like it?

In her most recent Substack writing prompt, Tanya Shadrick invited her community to write 500 words in response to the prompt, ‘Why I write…’. I decided to post my response here, rather than in the comments because initially my only response to the prompt was ‘because I like it.’

I considered posting that with a winky face but thankfully didn’t because on reflection I realise that would be lame. The question has stayed with me though and this is my eventual response.

I write because my brain is a circus of somersaulting thoughts that swing from trapeze in the heights of the Big Top, occasionally catching hands with the next thought. More often I’m left grasping thin air and tumbling into the sawdust. Writing suspends thoughts in mid-air, allows me to breathe between tumbles. When I write, I circle my thoughts as they hang, frozen, in front of me. I examine them from every angle, until the somersault can be safely completed.

I like writing because when I sink into a flow of connections from idea to idea to idea, or enter a world entirely of my own making, I can breathe freely, my shoulders drop and I walk away sated, as though I’ve spent the time in yoga nidra not round-shouldered over my laptop.

I like writing because afterwards I feel lighter. As though words - or perhaps thoughts - have a physical weight and the act of writing transfers that burden to the page.

I like writing because sometimes I work out what I think by testing ideas to see where they go. Where are the holes, the missed connections, the superficial statements? Sometimes I don’t know what I think until I’ve tried to write it down.

I like writing because I can edit. When I speak new thoughts distract me halfway through current thoughts and I change the subject, or lose my thread, leaving my speech a rambling tangle of half-completions. I’m a terrible oral story-teller.

I like writing because when I speak I sometimes stumble. A guillotine slams down and severs self from voice - my mouth opens and no words come out at all. At other times, the connection between brain and mouth is too immediate and my speech betrays how my unruly brain behaves. My writing gives a better, kinder picture of what I really think. My fingers can be trusted.

I write, because I like it.