Why I Write: Part 1

I'm not really sure how many installments it's going to take to explain why I like to write so much. I know there will be at least one more post about why I write fiction, and another one about writing nonfiction. Clearly planning is not my forte as a blogger. But after you read today's post, I hope you will understand why I'm not sure how long it will take to explain why I like to write.

Here's why I write. 

My brain feels scattered, and writing is my way of organizing all my mental objects. Thoughts that that are crowding around in my mind move too fast and are too tangled and interconnected for me to ever make sense of them; they exist as a collection of images, feelings, words, memories, and information. They are not arranged linearly or pictorially or in categories. As far as I can tell, they are not arranged at all, and try as I might, I cannot organize them by just sitting around and thinking. 

This means that processing information, or processing my thoughts and feelings, is difficult for me. So, I write to process. Otherwise, all those thoughts are lying around in pieces, never quite connecting and forming a unified whole. Unlike linear and logical people, I have no innate mental schema for organizing thoughts. I have one friend who only wrote one draft of every paper she wrote in college (and she got good grades). That’s right: she could formulate an argument and come to a conclusion all in one draft, writing her paper from start to finish, from introduction to logical conclusion. I, however, cannot tell a story from beginning to end. My brain doesn’t work that way. When I start writing, I have some idea of what I'll include and where I'm going, but it's never complete. I have to edit and reorganize as I go.

Here’s how I picture it: Some people's brains are like a new 64-pack of crayons, with each crayon of a particular color representing a complete idea and its sub-ideas. These people's thoughts are neatly separated, whole entities, still in their fresh wrappers, and sorted by color from lightest to darkest. These are the people who are logical and linear; they have administrative and organizational gifts. When they encounter new information, it's often easy for them to know where that new information fits in. Simple! Just find the crayons of most similar color and make a space for the new crayon in between.

On the other hand, my mind is like a 64-pack where all of the crayons have been broken into multiple pieces. In fact, the pack itself was destroyed and thrown away long ago, so now all the crayons are kept in a big jumble in a plastic bowl, and there are no wrappers to speak of. If two pieces of the same color happen to be touching, it’s only by coincidence. When thoughts get long and complicated, there's no way I can find any kind of conclusion, because I don't know where all the pieces of that crayon are. Throw in new information, and it just sits in the bowl on top of the pile.

Writing for me is like sorting the big bowl of crayons according to color. I don’t pick through the crayons and try to find every single piece of red all at once, moving on to every single piece of blue, pink, etc. Writing is the process of getting all the crayons out of the bowl and sorting through them so I can put like colors together. It allows me to lay everything out at once that seems to be even remotely related, then select the truly relevant details and thoughts. I can piece them together and see what kind of whole they form (putting the same color pieces together to make a crayon), and I can throw the irrelevant pieces (the other colors) back in the bowl. When I write, it puts the words, images, feelings, memories outside of me and allows me to organize them.

This is my brain. This is why I need to write. 

Someone Prayed for Me

Monday morning when I woke up, I turned off the alarm on my phone and instantly went to Facebook, something that I've found helps me wake up mentally and actually get out of bed, instead of just going back to sleep. And I found out that someone was praying for me.

I don't know this woman very well. I know her through Facebook updates; she goes to our church; I had taught her daughter in a small Spanish class I did for a homeschool co-op a couple years ago. But she had tagged me in her status update, saying that she had woken up early and was praying for me and a few other people who have been hurt by some recent events.

It was humbling and, of course, encouraging. I felt so grateful that while I've been feeling very alone in my struggles, someone was praying for me. This made me stop and pray for her family as well.

Then I started thinking about the other people for whom she was praying, and I prayed for them too. Then, I remembered some other friends who were going through difficult times or who were about to do something out of the ordinary, so I prayed for them too. A few other people came into my mind, so I prayed for them too.

Then I started thinking about the nature of prayer, and how much we need it, and how little I do it. I thought about how merciful God is to me, and how He saved me, and how much He and His Son sacrificed to save me. I thought about the nature of God.

And all this before breakfast!

I cannot pray and contemplate God for long without feeling peace come over me. It makes me forget the little troubles and feel grateful for what I have. It reminds me that I don't have to be stressed about controlling all the little details in my life, because Someone who loves me with perfect wisdom is controlling them for me. I start thinking about how I can love others, instead of how I can get them to love me.

God worked through her prayers. The morning was wonderful because a woman stopped and prayed for me, and let me know she was praying for me. This made me more determined to stop and pray for others, and let them know about it as well. I truly thank Him for her.