From a technical point of view, writing is the act of placing written characters into a series, that then make up words, which then come together into sentences, which group into paragraphs, which are finally collected together to form a piece of literature. But does that really encompass writing? I mean, how could it? Writing can create new worlds, let knowledge travel across time and space, and affect the hearts and minds of real people through the lives of imaginary ones. This definition is what writing is to people that don’t understand it, and it’s fine not to. A person can go their entire life without understanding what words can do, what kind of power they hold.
But there are those select few who do understand words and the kind of power they hold. They can weave the magic of words together and perform amazing things with it, creating far away lands and endless adventure. These sorcerers go by many names, Authors, Novelists, Journalists, Scholars, Politicians, Bloggers, the list goes on. I like to think of myself as part of the gang. But while we go by many names, there is one that I think covers all of them. We can control the magic of words with simple keyboard clicks and pen swipes. We splay our imaginations out onto paper in ink and graphite. Quite simply…we are Writers.
Writers. Sure not many of us get rich of our occupation, if we get any money at all. We can be dramatic, over achieving, and down right stubborn to our work. And of course we cannot forget those of us who, in all honesty, are a little off the deep end. But that is the price we pay, our normality for our power. It’s a deal with the devil to acquire a God-given talent. We understand that writing is so much more than just characters and formats and recording information. Writing is an art that’s true meaning is so hard to put into words. It’s as if the words themselves conspire against the writers; so that the best a person can do is just guess and tease at what writing really is.
If I had to try, I would call writing the power of creation and transmission. Writing allows you to create anything, put it to paper, and transmit that creation to the reader through words. You can literally create an entire universe your own, as different from ours as you like, and weave words to carry that entire universe off to another person’s mind for them to cherish and explore.
That is what writing is to me, the misunderstood magic created by writers and given to the world through words. That is why I want to be a writer, to make magic for people to enjoy. There isn’t a higher calling in life than to simply give people some entertainment in a bland world.