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There are so many things we can do with our time. Why do so many of us decide to spend a large amount of time writing?
For the first thirty years of my life, I thought I was the only one who thought like I did. That was a lonely existence.
It was with great distaste that I went to my first adult book store. The place reeked of disinfectant they used to swab out the peep show booths. (Maybe the thought of that awful smell is one reason why I fill my stories with perfume references?) Just to get into the store you had to run a gauntlet of whores asking if you wouldn’t rather “have the real thing.”
The first stories I purchased were in dreary magazines with tawdry ads for unthinkable products. Most of the stories left me cold because they contained themes that I did not appreciate.
Yet . . . the process opened my mind to the revelation that there were many others like me.
In the 1990s I found online stories, which eventually led me to Fictionmania and Storysite. After reading nearly every story I could find, I came to the conclusion that if I wanted to read a really good story -- that met my particular needs -- I was going to have to write it. After several years of posting on FM and Storysite, I wrote Baseball Annie and subsequently was asked by Erin to participate in Big Closet. I soon realized it was the place I felt most at home.
https://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/9433/baseball-annie
There are many BC writers who are more talented than I am. Even though they’re more talented, none of them can write a story that I will enjoy as much as a story I craft for my own interests. (I’m not as narcissistic as the person we’ve elected president, but I’m within striking distance.) I often read my old stories because they’re like old friends who remind me of where I’ve been.
I write because:
1.) I want to escape
2.) It’s a rewarding challenge
3.) I want to learn about myself and others like me
4.) I need to be entertained and others need to be entertained
5.) It’s important to me to express myself and to have the attention of others
6.) It’s one way I can provoke change
How about you? Why do you write?
Jill
Comments
Why do I write?
Compulsion, plain and simple.
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If you appreciate my tales, please consider supporting me on Patreon so that I may continue:
https://www.patreon.com/Nagrij
Torture
The hell in wanting to write.
Not wanting
The Hell in being compelled to write.
I don't write. Yet.
I wrote some songs, poems and short stories when I was much younger. But I put much of my artistic efforts elsewhere. Now that I am reading all of these stories here, I'm giving some thought to doing a bit of writing again. I probably won't. (My getting-around-to-it doesn't work too well.)
But I'm very grateful that there are so many authors here that do. Thank you, everyone.
If you need one, then here.
Now, you have NO excuse, so write, already.
*Kisses Always*
Haylee V
Why We Write
Now I'm picturing a Frank Capra style propaganda film, like his WHY WE FIGHT; calling up potential authors to enlist in the cause of transgender fiction and write tales to change minds, win hearts and help secure our rights. Sounds like a good starting point for one of Andrea Lena's short parody pieces.
But for me, compulsion is a big part of it. For whatever reason it feels better to be writing than not writing. I've been scribbling nonstop in my own hours (pausing occasionally for nervous breakdowns and stints in rehab) since the Nixon administration. And since coming HERE I love feedback, comments, friendships I've made from not just stuffing my works in a filing cabinet for the earwigs to feast on.
I was watching a new TV series based on some second string MARVEL superheroes, and after about four episodes I was thinking, "This is pretty okay---(love that Jessica Jones!)---but GOD do I wish one of these characters would do something off the wall, incongruous, daft and totally unexpected!" And if I want that, I usually have to write it myself (And which is why my own stuff wouldn't work too well as pro-LGBT propaganda; which is probably a terrible primary reason to write anyway, nobody likes to be preached at; but an excellent secondary one...)
~hugs all around, Veronica
We now return to our regular programming:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTl00248Z48
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I write because
I have a sick, twisted, and totally warped mind that is full of things begging to get out. If I did not have a safe haven for my zaniness, I'd slowly (or some say not so slowly) go utterly mad. I write various things: inspirational, magical, autobiographical (my darker side, with which I let the pain flow freely), humorous, and yes, some have even said totally stupid. I write because I like to hear the sounds of keys clicking by my command, and words coming together in whimsical fashion. I write to honor those who hold special places in my heart. I write to free myself of my oft too heavy burdens. I write to better myself, and hopefully, those around me as well. I write because I cannot NOT write. It's in my blood, and an integral part of who I am.
*Kisses Always*
Haylee V
For the same reasons you do.
At least, that's one of my reasons. I too have very particular tastes, things I do and do not want to see in a story that make it appeal to me, and while there are plenty of other authors whose work I enjoy, most of what I've written was because I wanted to see more stories out in the world that were *my* kind of stories. I'm far from the most talented author in the world, but I'd like to think I can spin an okay yarn when I put my heart into it.
That's one reason I write. I also write to help myself grow, both as a person and as an author. I get asked a lot by friends why I enjoy games so much when I hardly ever finish them, or why I like toys and puzzles and things like that still, and the reason is simple: I enjoy things that teach me a new way of looking at problems or teach me new skills with which to handle those issues. It's one of the reasons you see me throw out so many short pieces here on the site: I feel like they help me to develop new writing skills, and it allows me to dive into subjects and plotlines I wouldn't feel comfortable tackling on a larger scale.
So, in the grand scheme of things I guess you could say all of this much more simply. I write because I like to share, because I like to read, and because I like to learn.
Melanie E.
The damn Muse!
I write for so many different reasons. I have stories in my head to get out, or at this point one. I enjoy the escapism that my story provides me. It relaxes me to sit and spend time crafting a story, something I have always wanted to do. But mostly its that damn muse that decides to visit me and either gets me going or keeps me up late. Then when the muse is not around I feel lost. So it's not my fault I write its the muse's
Kris
I write for all the wrong reasons...
I write for all the wrong reasons.
I write to see if I can.
I write to see what moves people.
I write to see if the work can pluck the chords within the readers' souls.
I write to share the demons, the ones that haunt my dreams.
I write to think, to understand, and to feel.
I write to see realities that are not always true.
I write to escape the ones that are true.
I write to know what is possible.
I write to work on what is impossible.
I write to be selfish.
I write because without ink it's just a page.
Writing Out Our Pain
I wrote my first story in the 80's, and it was a post apocalyptic BDSM work, or started out that way. I put my female protagonist in an awful, perverted situation at first, but by mid way through, the villain who was supposed to murder her had rescued her and they were fleeing some really bad people. Such was my career in Pornography. It was not transgender at all. Someday I might resurrect and publish it, but it will mean a complete Frankenstein wackerectomy before I do. If you are familiar with the work of John Norman, this is worse. From a psychological point of view it is easy to see it as escapist Sci Fi.
My first TS story was MS Frankenstein, and was written under the influence of copious amounts of psych drugs that made me very suggestible. To that I added Vicodin when the pain got too bad. I was writing out the pain of the total loss of everything in life that meant anything to me because I was counseled to believe I was transgendered. 14 years on, it is now clear to me that I had a sexual addiction, and a bad marriage that sucked the life out of me for 39 years. I didn't need SRS, I needed a divorce.
On the bright side, bluntly, though I did not premeditate this, coming out as TS got me declared disabled and onto SSI for a few years. I couldn't work because I was too banged up from on the job injuries. Don't get me wrong, I love living as a woman because I don't have to put up with half the BS that a man does, I no longer have ANY hormone producing sexual organs so the Sex addiction is gone, and that is like getting rid of a smashed Big Toe Nail, um X10. Every couple of months, or so, something happens to kindle desire, but when I get that burned out, it is gone for another couple months.
Being somewhere along the Aspergers continuum, I don't expect anyone to come sweep me off my feet, so any loneliness that comes up, I have to deal with on my own. I mostly do not write as Gwen Brown any more.
Writing?
Why writing? Because its a part of who I am.
I've been enchanted with the written word for longer than I can recall. My parents purchased a library of the classics, really nice high quality books and I was transported into other worlds beyond my imagining at the time, taken to places so foreign I had no real concept of what was being described and had to build a picture in my mind's eye. Moby Dick was one of the books that launched me on this path, as were the collected works of Kipling, The Brothers Grimm(A far cry from the versions of those stories given to children even now) and the collected works of Doyle. I never managed to get through A Tale of Two Cities, the drawing and quartering scene was entirely off-putting for an 8 year old...
I remember our third grade teacher read us "Les Miserables". Every kid in the room was riveted for 30 or 40 minutes of every day and I wanted to be able to tell a story like that, something that would give others that sense of wonder that a good story brings me still. It was quite some time before I actually got started on trying but by '91 I was pounding away at an old manual typewriter a few hours a day, working on the story that was stuck in my head.
Unfortunately I was unable to do it justice... I produced 500 pages of something that read like an outline. Over the years I learned more about not just how to tell a story but how to tell the story I want to, in the way I want to tell it and I picked that story back up, with some adjustments to compensate for the intervening 25 years. Part of it is written and posted here (Gaia's Children) but there's a lot of writing yet to be done on that one.
I suppose all things considered, I write for the same reason every other writer does. Its about as much of a choice as breathing.
Abby
I write
I write because I don't know how not to. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Why do I write?
Like many here I became enthralled with the written word. I still remember the first book that drew me in so heavily that while I was reading, I felt like I was transported into the story. I was 7 years old and found Journey to the center of the earth. Jules Verne became my best friend after that, spending hours each day reading everything the public library had that he had written. He introduced me into the world of science fiction.
Of course other authors followed Clarke, Asimov, Pohl, Niven, just to name a few. I also read in other genres and became quite fond of Louis L'amour also. Although as Verne drew me in, I have to say that Heinlein was the one that made me fall completely in love with the sci-fi genre.
I've always had a great imagination and been very creative. I play several different stringed instruments, sketch, paint, and build scale models from scratch, make handmade quilts from scratch, although my greatest love as always been writing. For as long as I can remember I've wanted to be able to write stories like the ones I read while growing up, ones that would sweep the reader into the story like Heinlein and the other great masters of science fiction did with their stories.
We the willing, led by the unsure. Have been doing so much with so little for so long,
We are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
Why? I don't know but...
Before I started writing TG stories, I had not written any fiction for around 35 years i.e. since I left school and I was pretty bad at it then. If anyone had said to me then that I'd be writing fiction now then I would have gotten them carted off to the loony bin in double quick time.
After that I wrote endless reports, specifications and other job related stuff.
Then I got a job in Saudi and needed something to do in the evenings. I'd found Storysite about a year or so before and had been lurking for sometime.
That got me thinking ... 'why not give it a go'.
I did and it was total crap (by comparison to what I write today which is still pretty poort TBH) but I developed and eventually, I posted a few stories on Storysite.
Then for some reason, I stopped writing and even reading TG stuff. But in 2009, I needed something to get my brain working again after Chemo. Writing Stories came and hit me in the face like a slap with a bit of wet fish.
So here I am still writing. I have to rein myself in at times as it is easy for my muse to dive off the deep end into some pretty dark areas that are not suitable for here (or anywhere for that matter)
Now I actually enjoy it. Strange that...
Samantha
Why?
Why, oh why, would someone with rather severe writer's block write? Beyond mitigating writer's block, of course.
It turns me on?
I have a message to get out?
I have an interesting and perverted story or scenario?
I have lots of ideas for scenes and stories, usually perverted, of course. My muse gives me all sorts of ideas, but doesn't tell me how to get them down.
I would like to give a proper (or maybe perverted, or maybe just different) perspective on something I've read, or take something in the direction of its logical conclusion.
Various other reasons I can't think of off-hand right now.
-- Daphne Xu
Physics
For that matter, why would one want to create a physics problem, work for years on it, twist it around, contort it, and try to finally understand it?
-- Daphne Xu
Because I can
Because I can create characters and situations to express ideas, educate, shock, sadden or make joyful. I like to play with words, mind you it's never something with which I'd persist, too much of a butterfly.
Angharad
Enjoyment and over actived imaganation
I always have something going on inside my head and if I don't get it out,it drives me crazy. I enjoy telling a good story to people and allowing interesting characters to come to life.
If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”
― Toni Morrison
Writing
I've always had an interest in writing and actually wanted to be a writer when I was a kid. I started a lot of stories and rarely finished them. Around 7 or so, I wrote and drew my own comic books, such as they were. And during the 80's, I started finding TG stories on BBS systems and FTP sites. Most of these stories were completely dreadful. They were heavy with fetish and forced femme. I decided I could do something better and wrote The Reluctant Girlfriend and sent it to Melanie Phillips who had a newsletter called The Subversive. Then I found Sapphire's Place and ultimately BCTS.
Melanie