Friday, October 8, 2021

Why do you write?


In 1985, I bought an old, Royal, manual typewriter, much like the one in this video, for $15 at the San Jose Swap Meet.  I had just moved there from Boise, Idaho, and the weird, new little sport of BMX freestyle was my life.  I used that typewriter to start a zine about BMX freestyle, as a way to meet the other riders in the Bay Area.  That was the start of my writing "career."  In less than a year my zine landed me a magazine job in Southern California.  I had no idea that would happen, and it definitely wasn't my goal.  But that zine, San Jose Stylin', changed the entire course of my life.

Why do you write?  Do you just have something to say to the world?  Do you want to be a bestselling author or novelist some day?  Do you want to write a script for Hollywood and win an Oscar?  Do you want to become a famous writer?  Do you just want to be a "working writer?"  Do you think being a writer will get you laid?  Do you just love torture?  Do you want to make a fortune writing stuff that impresses that asshole professor in college who told you that you didn't have what it takes to "make it" was a professional writer?  Or do you see yourself as a conduit of information from some unknown source that needs to come into our physical world as books, movies or some other written form?  Or are you someone who has been writing for years, and you're just going to keep doing it, money or no money involved, because it's who you are?

There are a lot of reasons to want to write.  If money, fame and glory are your main reasons, you probably won't stick with it long enough to find any of those.  But if you have something to say to the world, or you keep coming up with ideas that seem like they should be part of a book or movie, you may be in it for the long haul.  

I started a zine when I'd only heard of them in a FREESTYLIN' (BMX) magazine article.  I'd never seen an actual zine.  I wanted an excuse to meet the pro BMX freestylers of the San Francisco Bay Area.  BMX freestyle, which was largely unknown to normal people in 1985, was my life.  I was 19-years-old, and couldn't afford to go to college.  I didn't really have a drive towards anything that needed a degree, so I worked at a Pizza Hut, and spent nights creating a really ugly, but pretty solid zine.  Less than a year later, FREESTYLIN' magazine (and sister mag BMX Action) offered me a job.  I didn't consider myself a writer then, I wanted to be a pro rider, a BMX freestyler, not a writer.  I didn't really click with the staff there, and got laid off after a few months (and replaced by 18-year-oldBMX/skater kid Spike Jonze).  

My next job was a year as writer/editor/photographer for a BMX freestyle newsletter.  Near the end of that, I was beginning to enjoy writing, and starting to feel like a "writer."  In the 33 years since, I've only been paid to write for two months, another short-lived BMX magazine, in 1998.  But I've written and published 40+ zines, including three of poetry.  And since 2008, I've tried 25-35 blog ideas, and written well over 2,400 blog posts.  I did that for free, writing things I, personally, wanted to write about.  Those posts pulled in over 435,000 total page views, so much of what I've written has actually been read by some people.  Along the way, over 36 years, I've become much more aware of my creative process, how I work, and how I write. 

I don't get writer's block really.  On the contrary, I'm usually exploding with far more ideas than I can sit down and write.  If I don't have a ready idea for one blog or piece, I usually have an idea for another, so I'll work on that.  Part of our influence in the 1980's BMX freestyle scene was punk rock, with it's DIY (Do It Yourself) attitude.  So self-publishing, in zines, blogs, and one ebook, made sense to me.  I've never given myself one rejection letter.  I've never really tried to get a book published by a traditional publisher, I cranked out one ebook last year, and sold a few copies.  Most of my blogging, since 2008, has been about my life in the early days of 1980's BMX freestyle.  I became an industry guy, a video producer, and knew all the pros and industry people of the first wave of what is now a worldwide sport.  So I had a lot of weird, little insider stories from that world.

Over the 36 years I've been writing pretty consistently, my reasons for writing have changed.  I consume a lot of information, and then think about it, like most avid readers do.  There came a point where I realized I needed to write my thoughts on different subjects, to let what I've learned flow back out into the world.  If I just read, I would be like a big lake with a river flowing into it, just filling up more and more and more.  But to really flow, like life itself, I needed to let my thoughts flow back out of the lake, producing my own river of content.  I'm not saying that's a good metaphor for everyone, but it works for me.  I write a lot more than I read these days, but I spent the 1990's and 2000's reading 250 or 300 books, and listening to 150 more on audiotape.  

I write because, as an organism, I get curious, I read and learn, and then think about what I've learned.  Then I pretty much NEED to write something, to put my take on that subject back out into the world.  That's what works for me, and why I will self-publish in blogs or zines, even with no money coming back, much of the time.  

That said, I've been struggling with homelessness, in and out of it, since I became a taxi driver in 1999, and I need to start making a decent living again.  I plan to do that primarily by writing, and with the unique Sharpie marker art I do, (#sharpiescribblestyle) as another creative outlet. So that's why I write.  I'm just geared to take in info, ponder about it, and write my take on this subject or that one, mostly with non-fiction, but now with some fiction as well.

So I'll ask again, why to you write?  When you find the deep reason for it, a lot of daily writing issues seem to fade away, at least to some degree.  When you figure out your own process, and work with it, a lot of the torture aspect goes away as well, at least in my experience. 


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