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The
Writing Life
Why
I Write: The Awful Truth
by Sandy Tritt
I came out of
the closet the day I attended my first prose workshop. I distributed
copies of my manuscript to my fellow transgressors, hung my head, and
whispered my admission: "My name is Sandy. I am a... writer." The
members of this group understood what only those who have experienced
such addictions can understand: Writing is not a job. It's not a hobby.
It's a drive, as basic as eating and sleeping and drinking, as
necessary as oxygen. It is something that is in me and must be released.
I have not
always been ashamed of my passion. As a pre-teen, I eagerly told anyone
who'd listen that I wanted to be a writer when I grew up.
"She'll outgrow
it," my mother assured my father.
"Don't you mean
a teacher?" my teacher asked.
"There are
enough books already," the librarian said.
But I went on to
college and majored in English Literature. I loved it. My counselor
hated it. "You are so good in math. You need to think about the
future." I didn't listen. "You can't pay the rent by writing." I didn't
care. "You need a real job." I didn't need anything except a pen and a
pad of paper. "Unless you want to depend on a man ... " And he had me.
Those were fighting words in 1975. I Am Woman. I can do anything.
Listen to me roar.
I became a
programmer. I learned to manipulate numbers to propagate whatever
pretension was required: production is on schedule, customers are
happy, the business is solvent. I learned to use fact to tell lies. But
at night, my compulsion surfaced. I used lies—made-up
stories about
made-up people with made-up problems—to
unearth the Truth. I wrote
late into the night, the pen my secret lover, the paper my confidante.
For ten years I satisfied my cravings with nocturnal fixes. Then, busy
having babies and feeding babies and cleaning babies, my binders went
to the attic and my pen went dry. I tried to compensate. I smoked. I
drank. I binged on chocolate. But nothing satisfied that carnal craving.
One day—and
I
don't remember which day or what inspired it—I
retrieved those dusty
three-ring binders and read the words I'd written years before. My
heart beat faster. Sweat dotted my forehead. I couldn't stop. I read
for days, my excitement growing. I spent weeks typing, months revising.
I endured the rejection, the rewrites, the criticism. I embraced the
joy, the pain, the fear. I submitted to my passion, finally admitting
that awful truth: I still want to be a writer when I grow up.
© 1994
Sandy
Tritt. All rights reserved. www.InspirationForWriters.com
You may reproduce portions of these
essays and stories for educational purposes like writing workshops as
long you distribute our copyright notice and our URL
(InspirationForWriters.com) with each page. For use in conferences,
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