I WRITE BECAUSE I HAVE TO...I WRITE BECAUSE I HAVE TO...I WRITE BECAUSE I HAVE TO...HAVE TO WRITE BECAUSE I, DAMMIT!

I write because I have to. Or do I? Consider the numbing number of people who write because they have to, as evidenced by this Google search (initiated one evening by my good friend Paul Larsen).

It begins to become the mantra of the indoctrinated, the litany of the rosary-bead-counting priest, the tick-tock of some literary clock. I-write-be-cause-I-have-to. And the gears lament their way through another mechanical rotation of the inevitable. (I sure didn't write that sentence because I had to. Unfortunately, you had to read it.) Let us examine these claims of "writing because I have to," without naming names--they're public enough as it is. And I, at heart, may be one of them, horrible though it is to admit to joining the Army of the Trite...

More than anything I write because I have to
because I want to make a difference to someone~ to anyone~
because I want people to listen to me
and to understand.
I write because
that's who I am.

And:

Why do I write? Because I have to. God gave me a talent. HE gives me the words. HE is my inspiration. HE called me to write. I was always taught that if I didn't use the talents God gave me, I would lose them. Well, I refuse to lose a gift from my Lord.

And:

I write because I have to, because the urge is almost physical in nature. I see a couple fighting in the supermarket, geese flying overhead as I walk, my daughter's smile when she opens a new box of crayons and my heart and mind jump to attention. Together, they hatch a plan and before I know it, I'm at the keyboard.

And:

I don't know about you but I write because I have to. I've been writing for so long that it is imbedded in my genetic code

And:

I write because I have to write. It's my therapy, my way of stating the truth as I see it. Truth is something I've been somewhat consumed with for some time now. To speak the truth or better yet be true.

And:

Why do I write? I write for many reasons, but most of the time I write because I have to.

And:

I write because I have to write, because the writing comes - not all the time, by any means, and not very often. I tend to write in spurts, with months of no writing at all in-between.

And:

But I don't write, primarily, for political reasons. I write because I have to.

And:

I write because I have to. There’s no way around it—believe me, if there was, I would have found it by now.

And:

I write because I have to. It's what He put in me. It's what He called me to do.

And:

I WRITE BECAUSE I HAVE TO. Like a musician, I’ve found the ability that The ONE has allowed me to voice. Like a blowhole I can express myself. Others are still trying to find it. I'm afraid that others may never find it, but I have.

And:

I write because I have to do it. That is a voice in my head.

And:

I don’t write to be happy or to receive any sort of satisfaction, I write because I have to, because for me writing is like breathing.

[Must fight attempt to...do...a...reveal. Oh what the heck: that one is this pompous son-of-a-bitch.]

And:

I write because I have to or else I'll go crazy. Some writers (like me) feel like Paul Revere. We have to alert the world that something's coming - evil, good, death, life. We can't get off the horse because we know the truth (or our version of truth) and we have to share it. No lie.

And:

Do you call a shark brave? I write because I have to.

And:

I would have killed for luck. And hope was something I lost somewhere during book four. I write because I have to write; it’s who I am.

And:

[I can't go on. I must go on.]

Being a poet is like having two marriages. I write because I have to. If I don’t, I become physically ill. It is something like breathing, eating, or drinking water.

[And that pompous son-of-a-bitch is also a poet! What? Do they Have a monopoly?!]

And:

But I have another terrible affliction, too. I'm a writer. Anyone who doesn't think

that this is an affliction has no idea what they're talking about. I don't write because it's a bit of a laugh. I don't write because it seems like an easy route to a middle-class lifestyle. I write because I have to. I don't get any say in it - if I don't write, the words build up, they strain at the edges of my brain, and I cannot concentrate. Without a word of exaggeration, I have trouble focusing on the simplest things. Even at the best of times, the odds are that whatever I'm actually doing, there'll be 30% of my brain that's juggling words, plots, characters, concepts and methods of execution.

[Talk about smug!]



And:

I write because I have to. Do you ask a dolphin how it swims?

[And oh my god, that pompous son-of-a-bitch...is ME...]

And...oh, but I can't go on. You'll have to investigate the rest yourself.

Whether young or old, Mingus or unknown (and can you tell which is which from the above?), Derek Walcott or unpublished (and can you tell them by their syntax?), crippled or whole, insane or sane, religious or not religious, it seems that almost 1,180 web pages express the notion that we write "because we have to."

I sense conspiracy. I sense a vast CIA thought experiment or an alien abduction crisis.

At the very least, I have been forever cured of the notion that I write because I have to. I think now, having been super-saturated with the romantic notion of writing because one has to, that I write because I want to. I write because I want to. It doesn't matter what I want to. Just that I want to want to. (Certainly, now, with the Wagnerian chorus of voices rising in my memory, next time I'm asked why I write, I will most definitely provide an answer other than "er, because I have ta? what was the question again?"

And another thought: Too bad most readers don't read because they have to...

"I read because I have to. If I didn't, my imagination would shrivel to the size of a pea and my brain would explore ways to leave my boring body."

I write because I have to. This blog entry is proof. It had to exist or I would not be happy or fulfilled or satisfied or satiated or contented or joyful or joyous or epiphanized or metamorphosized or...All your motivation belong to us...



(Evil Monkey: "You follow up your thoughtful Kafka on the Shore post with this...this drivel?" Jeff: "I write because I have to." Evil Monkey: "I listen because I have to. How sad is that?" Jeff: "Oh my god. I can't get it out of my head. I write because I have to. I write because I have to. I write because I have to. I write because I have to. I write because I have to.")