Why I'm Writing

It's funny, when I was girl- like, 6 and 7 years old- when people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, in true, indecisive Libra style, I would enthusiastically respond, "I want to be a dancer, a writer, and a nurse!!" Well I discovered in high school biology that I didn't have the stomach for blood, so a career in medicine was out. I still joyfully and consistently dance, although I never have professionally, as my main source of income. These days it's hip-hop and social ballroom classes. And I am an author- the editor of a book on design thinking and I'm celebrating the 1-year birthday of The Creativity Leap on June 20th, 2021! ??????

I've just read George Orwell's 1946 essay "Why I Write" . Do read it. It's so honest. And it's uncanny that he wrote this 2-years before publishing 1984. My takeaways from Orwell are that we write for:

1. Ego- to be remembered;
2. To make the case for a problem we've discerned. Orwell phrased it as "to get a hearing";
3. For the aesthetic exploration of words, their phrasing, and their placement on the page; they're a manifestation of the blooming of ideas.

Orwell concludes with:

All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist or understand. For all one knows that demon is simply the same instinct that makes a baby squall for attention. And yet it is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one’s own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane. I cannot say with certainty which of my motives are the strongest, but I know which of them deserve to be followed.

I love that part where he says that writing is "like a windowpane". And, maybe this is what Orwell meant, but I'd take it a step further and say, like any honest relationship, writing is a frigging magnifying mirror- showing up all our flaws and assets in technicolor.

I'll keep writing, keep giving ideas a hearing, struggle with myself, my ego- and hopefully contribute to the greater consciousness.

How about you? Why do you write?

Share below in the comments section!

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About the Author

Natalie Nixon is the creativity whisperer to the C-Suite, Founder & CEO of Figure 8 Thinking , a global keynote speaker and an award winning author . Subscribe to her?Ever Wonder…? ?newsletter?for more great content?and follow her @natwnixon.