I just finished reading George Orwell's essay "Why I Write" written in 1946. The piece detailed the reasons on what inspired him to write. What stood out were Orwell's "four motives of writing" that exist in every writer:
Sheer egoism, the desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on the grown-ups who snubbed
you in childhood, etc., etc.; aesthetic enthusiasm, the
perception of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement; historical impulse, the desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity; and political purpose, the desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter
other peoples' idea of the kind of society that they should strive after.
you in childhood, etc., etc.; aesthetic enthusiasm, the
perception of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement; historical impulse, the desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity; and political purpose, the desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter
other peoples' idea of the kind of society that they should strive after.
Orwell, who was renowned to be a political writer, professed to be motivated by the first three in the list - surprisingly.
That led me to wonder: What started me writing? Now that I have Mr Orwell's analysis on different writers' motivation in print, I can use his take on the topic to ask myself that question.
Initially, I questioned if his list is too short and not exhaustive enough to categorise all types of writers - I took his analysis nonetheless. I am basing on the fact that he had written and published so many well-known literature that are still very much loved and well respected by the world to this day; therefore, his observations must hold some empirical truth.
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Honestly, the reason that I write is because writing has made me more sensitive and more aware of my feelings and of others. Whenever I experience something that would arouse my emotions that vary - from sheer ecstasy to utter misery - I will try to put together emotive words in my head to "get THAT right feel for THAT moment"; likewise, I repeat the same process when I see a myriad of feelings coming from characters ranging from reel life to real life.
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A simple example would be how I dislike using "happy" for situations ranging from receiving a pay raise to winning the jackpot. The feeling I get when I can express the different tonations of happiness with words, is like finally being able to bake the perfect pound cake that granny used to make: the right taste, the right texture and how perfect it feels when I put it in my mouth. When I am able to construct the exact right level of tonations using words to express how HAPPY I am for that given instance, that will really send tiny currents of thrill through me.
From the above said, I can say that I love collecting emotive expressions using words.
Another group of expressions that I thoroughly enjoy collecting are beautifully crafted expressions to describe the most mundane of the physical senses: hunger, thirst, cold, a tummyache or simply a description of how irritating a painful pimple can get. I collect them as how people would collect movies and music and stamps.
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It is without a doubt that it was confusing when I try to fit myself into any of the four groups on the list. The initial thought would be that I am writing out of sheer vanity and having a need to show how clever a piece of my writing can get - I feel that most people would be aroused to write due to these two reasons, to be honest. Orwell was not wrong when he wrote that writers are vain. They need to be vain and to be sheer egoisticical to start writing; however, being sheer egoistic cannot be the main reason. The main core must be topic relevant: what compels the writer - me - to write? After much given thought and having written so much about it, I can honestly say that I get aroused to write due to some form of sheer egoism. The big compulsion to do so is due to an underlying motivation that ought to be aptly placed under the category of aesthetic enthusiasm.
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