What is more satisfying, in the human experience, than regarding with love that thing you made. The pride that comes with praise deepens the experience and makes it last. I always wondered if toilet training kicks this off in all of us as our mother explodes with delight at our wonderful first attempts. When you finally get it right, she calls to your father: “Come see what Arthur did!” So there we are, on the potty at three years old, looking down into the watery abyss, and thinking, “Wow, that did come out pretty well didn’t it?” And we all move on to ashtrays at camp, finger painting, and beyond. For me, writing.
I write, first and foremost, for this moment of self-love and self-appreciation. That sounds horribly narcissistic, but I’ve long accepted that I’m one of those people who needs the approval not only of others but of myself in order to move forward in life. I have some sort of an engine that runs on approval. It’s not my favorite thing about me, but I’ve learned to accept it. I suspect many writers and artists have the same need for approval despite often loudly declaring that they don’t care what anyone thinks; but of course I don’t know for sure.
The second reason I write is to entertain. I’ve always enjoyed telling stories, from the time I was a very little kid. Some of these stories were lies, whoppers really, that got me in trouble. Once I told my mother that our bus driver, who was mean to me, got so mad at everyone on the bus that he drove us down to the police station to show us the jail where we’d end up. Apparently my telling was so detailed that everyone believed me. Except for the bus driver. He used the f-word when hashing the whole thing out with my parents. But I secretly loved the fact that I could be believable, and ultimately, hold an audience rapt with attention. I wondered how it worked and how I could get better at it.
In the end, I like to write because I like to observe, and I like to remember, and I like to reflect. This is, to me, the essence of great storytelling. I can immerse myself in the recounting of a situation as I write, and then I can laugh or cry at what I’ve written. We often talk about making ourselves laugh out loud, but I’m more amazed when something I’ve written makes me cry. My hope now is that I become more effective at eliciting an emotional response in my reader, so they will laugh and cry, the way I do when I write.