Why I Write

 

It all started in high school and was prompted by the song TIRED OF WAITING by the Kinks...  I was attending Cairo American College (high school) in Cairo, Egypt when I heard that song played on Voice of America one of the few radio stations we could receive.  The year was 1965.

The poem went on for 3 pages and was written in green ink...  it was about my love for a female classmate that I did not have the courage to tell because both of us were involved with other people.

In 1966, I graduated and in the fall I was enrolled in college as a student with an undeclared major.  During those first and half years, I would go to the student union before class began, and after getting coffee and finding a place to sit, I began poems in a small notebook just to have something to do while drinking my coffee.

After two and half years, I dropped out and enlisted in the Navy and after BootCamp would continue to write poetry in that little notebook whenever I had free time and was by myself.

I got married and after leaving the military, I returned to college but would stop by McDonalds for coffee before class instead of the student union.  This desire to write poetry has followed me my entire life.

When I was 40, I stopped smoking and began writing short stories in addition to my poetry that I shared with a Writers Club for several years.  My short stories were not well written and I knew that because I had concentrated on writing the short verses of poetry.

I did not think about why I was writing, I was just writing because I had something to say.

I wrote poems to my wife for her birthdays, other holidays and our anniversary because I thought my words were better than the words on a card that could be purchased.

As I got older, I began writing opinion articles that I published on social media forums like Facebook and LinkedIn and before I quit both of those outlets, I had written well over 1,200 of them...  mainly to share thoughts and to stir up controversy by getting people to think...  although few actually wanted to do that.

When I retired, I started writing novels and not with the idea of having any of them published but just to see if I had the patience and the ability to write a 300 page novel.

After writing 5 novels, one of which was lost due to my computer crashing, I decided to save them in the cloud.  I also decided that I would look into KDP publishing through Amazon...

But, why do I write?

I am not sure why...   I just feel compelled to put my thoughts down on paper.  I am not even sure if my poems are any good or not, although after writing over 42,000 of them, there must be a few that are worth reading.

But, my novels are more of a challenge than they are a simple desire to write.

I have two blogs now...  One is for the publishing of my poetry and one is for the publishing of my opinion articles...  My novels are being edited by me and will one day be ready to submit to KDP...  I have no idea if anyone will want to read them and I am not sure if I care...  if anything, I would rather not know if anyone wants to read them or not.

I have no support for my writing at all other than myself and a high school classmate from Canada - we have re-acquainted ourselves after over 20 years of no communication at all.

I cannot imagine a day going by without writing or if for some reason I cannot write, I think about what I want to write when I can continue writing.  This happened to me recently when I was in the hospital for a couple of days due to back surgery.

I don't know if this answers the title of this post or not but I have tried to explain it in the only way that I know how...  I write because I am compelled to write and there is something missing in my day, if I don't write.