Why do you write?

[cynthiacox]

I am a pen dancer of all genres of the freestyle form. I am curious to share why everyone writes or creates. I have heard many different answers and responses and reasons of motivation in creations.

I would appreciate all feedback:) Thanks:)

[Raymond Neely]

I write many different genres as well, Cynthia. It's a strength of ours known as diversity or versatility. This is the reason for all of our different categories and boards. I write to create with images and understandings, truths which I wish to communicate. I love to get people with my poems and cause the effects of the poems upon them. It is so much fun to publish, read, use this site, and share writings in other ways.

[debra]

Hi, Cynthia! A basic need to communicate is why I write, but the writing can take many forms. I have written many formal research papers to convey accurate and precise information. Creative writing is much more fun! Many thoughts fly through my brain and writing them down clarifies them. I am primarily a visual artist. I draw, paint, and use other mediums. The creativity is similar, but I love working with ink, acrylic paint, brilliant colors, the tactile quality of manipulation which is not inherent in writing. I love reading most of all! I love free verse and I love the intricacy of highly composed poetry with various rhyme schemes. I get so excited reading everyone's prose and poetry and meeting creative, artististic people!!! I am just beginning to write for the public and am just learning to use a pc. It is all so wonderful and I got carried away with your question. HAPPY HAPPY WRITING EVERYONE !!!

[cynthiacox]

I enjoy getting out and socializing with creative minds too.

I do minimal with freelancing of painting but I enjoy creating everything on the computer. The computer visuals is very fun for me. I love writing in freestyle form too. It's about being outside the box of standards that I enjoy so much in the freedom of creativity too:) If I weren't tone deaf, I would embrace my knowledge more of music too:)

If you all need help on computer skills or resources, feel free to email me. I'd be happy to pass along the trials and errors of what I have learned.

Creative minds are the coolest peoples I know!

[debra]

Thanks, Cynthia, for the offer of help with the computer skills, I surely could use some help.
I feel like " Rip Van Winkle" and I have just awakened to the compuer age. A long time ago
I could program in FORTRAN and BASIC when the computers used punch cards and were as big as my house. I lost many skills. However, I am anxious to learn as much as I can about
this ne w method of communication. I don't even know how to type very well. So, Thanks a lot
for the offer of help. I don't even know of the possibilities, but if I think of something I need to learn , I will definitely try to e-mail you, if I can remember how to send one. I've only sent
one so far, and it did get to it's destination.

thanks, deb 1/27/11

[cynthiacox]

Hi Debra:) I know what you mean about computers changing constantly. I fear that some would say Windows XP is outdated.

I tend to get comfortable in applications and websites that I enjoy and trust and it is hard to come outside that comfort zone because of too many bugs and viruses.

If you would like to learn how to type on your keyboard using your home row keys, this website has alot of great lessons and I trust it. I use it every now and again just to go back and test myself for fun.

www.freetypinggame.net/free-typing-lesson.asp

Don't be afraid is the best advice anyone gave me that I'll pass on to you. Just dive into it as time permits and be cautious of anything that says "free" mainly websites that are media focused with free movies and free music.

I have crashed a computer before because of free shareware on music. So now, I am just careful and pay for my music and movies that I get off of iTunes. YouTube appears to be a safe video site. Just be careful and not download anything to your computer and you should be fine.

Time is really the only investment you need in learning a computer and internet. Enjoy the journey and I hope the link helps out:)

[mcmillid]

Jan 27, 2011 23:38:18 GMT -5 debra said:

Thanks, Cynthia, for the offer of help with the computer skills, I surely could use some help.
I feel like " Rip Van Winkle" and I have just awakened to the compuer age. A long time ago
I could program in FORTRAN and BASIC when the computers used punch cards and were as big as my house. I lost many skills. However, I am anxious to learn as much as I can about
this ne w method of communication. I don't even know how to type very well. So, Thanks a lot
for the offer of help. I don't even know of the possibilities, but if I think of something I need to learn , I will definitely try to e-mail you, if I can remember how to send one. I've only sent
one so far, and it did get to it's destination.

thanks, deb 1/27/11

[mcmillid]

Jan 24, 2011 22:41:25 GMT -5 cynthiacox said:

I am a pen dancer of all genres of the freestyle form. I am curious to share why everyone writes or creates. I have heard many different answers and responses and reasons of motivation in creations.

I would appreciate all feedback:) Thanks:)

[mcmillid]

I don’t remember when I started to write, or why I thought I could write. It just happened. Thinking back I remember staying in touch with friends from high school by writing outrageously funny, to me, letters detailing my stay at home married life and comparing it to their much more interesting lives in the big cities. But my friends must have tired of my letters or else they just didn’t share my love of writing because except for one or two they quit writing. When I caught up with them years later, it seems they, too, had succumbed to the romance bug and married, had kids, bought the house, cooked the endless meals, and maybe that is why my letters were no longer entertaining. They were living the life. I write now as a kind of catharsis. If I write it down, it eases the problem. Somehow putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard stops the worry.

[mcmillid]

The Joke That Backfired…
Eons ago when I was a young bride, my husband worked at Meadow River Lumber Company in the machine shop. About eighteen to twenty men were so employed there. Being a young and rowdy bunch, practical jokes were rampant.
There was this big guy named Curt. He stood over six feet tall, handsome lad with curly brown hair, muscles honed by hard blacksmithing work every day. Curt was married to a cute little spitfire name Colleen with green eyes and red hair. Colleen had a drop dead figure and Curt was totally smitten.
Somewhere one of the guys acquired a pair of black, lacy women’s underwear. He thought it would be a great joke to sneak it into one of his companion’s lunch box and let him take it home with him, knowing full well it was always the wife who opened the lunch box in the evening and washed and prepared it, for the next day’s lunch. So the black lacy panties began to go home every week or so, with some unlucky fellow who would come back the next day carrying the panties and cussing a blue streak, but determined to get even by sneaking the notorious panties in someone else’s lunch pail.
Curt religiously checked his lunch box every evening before leaving for home. The other guys began to notice, so it became a challenge to send the panties home with Curt. They tried everything, but he always found them. They even stuffed them into his thermos, but he found them and threw them behind the lathe. Took the guys a few days, but they found them and became more determined than ever to sneak them into Curt’s lunch box.
One evening Mac, the shop foreman, announced that the whole crew would be staying over. One of the little shay engines used in the woods was being hauled in on the evening train. They needed to get it back out to the woods the next morning. The men groaned, but this was the way of their work. When the company called on them, they were there for the company. Along about midnight, Mac sent out and had food brought in for all the workers. They took a short break, ate their dinner and went back to work, finishing up about 3 a.m. All the guys were worn out and subdued as they gathered their things and trudged out to cars, or walked across the road to the company houses, where most of the married men lived, knowing they would only get a few hours sleep before the whistle blew the next morning.
Next day Curt didn’t show up at the regular time. It was not like him to be late even after such a shift as they’d had the last night. By 10 a.m. some of the guys were a little worried. It was about 11 when Curt came hurrying in apologizing to Mac, who stood in the shop door, hands on hips. Curt had a black eye, a cut across his upper lip, and one of his ears was swollen.
“What the hell happened to you?” Mac bellered. “Where you been, you pantywaist. Can’t you take a shift of work like a man?”
One of Curt’s fists was clenched by his side, and he glared around the shop. “Okay, which one of you sumbitches put these into my lunch box?” he roared as he unclenched his fist and let the black panties drop to the floor. No one fessed up! Colleen had taken a pair of scissors to the panties, just after she had taken the rolling pin to Curt. The panties never went home with another man.

Danny McMillion

[Raymond Neely]

That ain't as funny as I thought it would be. Sometimes just a prank ends up worse than intended. Good writing and we have eyes out for more.

RN

[Bob]

For me, it is not a question of why, it is more that fact that I need to write for my own sanity. Something special calms the inner beast when the creative muse visits and allows me to exercise the mind and the creative juices deep within the recesses of the soul.When I am out driving, putting out the trash, lying in bed, or just about anywhere I am, thoughts of lines or plots just seem to come out of nowhere. When I am out running errands or just out with my wife, I notice people, places, and things that may be something to focus on for a story or poem.

I feel the need to write just as we need to breathe to live. Writing is life, life is writing; they cannot be separated. When I am not writing, I get depressed. There something about the solitude of being at one with nothing but language and how to use it to elicit emotions and thoughts by how the words are used that the reader can relate to and experience from the words on a page as they read the story created by the author.

To be able to write something that is like a child in a way, and share the joy, sorrow, place and time of the story. To give the reader an escape from their life for a few minutes or hours, where they are transported via the magic carpet of words on a page is what I as a writer hope happens.

The poems I write are a slice of life as I see it through creative eyes. I wrote a poem about a specific thing, yet readers saw different concepts of what the poem was about for them. I feel I did my job. They each got something out of it as their life experiences led them to an emotion. That is what a poem should do as far as I am concerned. To put into words life experiences and have the reader relate in some way that makes them feel something. The same goes for prose.

It is by writing that the authors fulfill some inner sense of themselves. At least for me, I find a sense of calmness that nothing else brings quite the same feeling. When I am writing, the rest of the world disappears and a unique place and time enters in its place. It is this strange sense of calmness that rejuvenates the inner grounding of the soul. I have literally spent hours editing, reading or writing without any sense of time passing.

There are stories to entertain, cause discussions, escape the pressures of real life, and more that comes from reading the works of authors. In the fast-paced world we live in, there is nothing better than to take some time to read a good book. Being a voracious reader myself, I may be slightly biased.

This is why I am a writer.