miriam_e | What Does Writing Mean To You?

slackananda asked this on the

writingcritic community recently. I liked my rambling answer so decided it was worth posting it here (fixed a bit to make better sense).

It seems to me that writing is one of the highest artforms a human is capable of. Oddly it is the one that requires the simplest tools too. It can speak directly to people's experiences, can teach them new things, and touch them deeply, the way nothing else can. Writing is incredibly powerful.

When I see something odd or interesting or intriguing I don't just say, as many would, "Gee, that is odd (or interesting or intriguing)." I write it down and wonder how it could be cast into a part of a story. When I am at a busy street and see all those people walking down the footpath, each different, some striding, some limping, some with busy little bird-steps, some lazily dawdling... I wonder how I can use the images in stories to enliven characters. (I also wonder how I can use them to animate virtual characters because I am an artist and an animator.)

I am not a great writer, probably not even a very good writer, but that doesn't matter. I write almost entirely for me, just as I draw almost entirely for me. If someone else likes what I do then I'm happy for them; if they don't... well, it doesn't really matter -- I didn't do it for them anyway.

I try to treat everything I write with the same care and interest. When I do, I try to caress and stir the reptile deep in the mind while handing gems to the cool intelligence that rides on top. There is something adventurous and subversive and exotic in doing that.

People have wanted to be able to use telepathy since there have been people. Writers have been doing it with text for almost as long. Writers are so good at it that they can even communicate from beyond the grave. Walk into any library and look around. You are surrounded by hundreds of people, many of them long-since dead who are waiting to communicate with you through your eyeballs via the magic symbols they have left on pages or that have made their way to computer screens.

Writing is magic. It is so common that people overlook it, but it truly is magic. Writing can stir people to love, to hate, to weep, to laugh. It can empower them, or let them escape to other worlds for a time. All this from dry symbols, little black and white squiggles, on a page. Writers are magicians.

Writers are also the keepers of almost all society's knowledge -- and knowledge is the deepest seat of power. That is an incredible responsibility. Do politicians archive humanity's wisdom? No. Do the generals? No. The teachers? No (even though they help guide people to the writers). The bricklayers? The plumbers? The doctors? The roadbuilders? No. In the end, all humankind depends upon the writers.