I Love Creative Writing (Obviously)
I am a girl who has always understood the value of a good notebook, even if some of the first notebooks I considered good were janky ones from the dollar store. Any place to write is a good place to write. I love creative writing, and always have.
The benefits of creative writing are too many to list here, but suffice it to say that creative writing has provided me with an outlet to understand myself in a way that nothing else ever has.
I suppose it’s that way for most artists. When you find the thing that you love doing, it tends to be the way you communicate with the world. And it’s probably the way you communicate with yourself too.
How I Fell in Love with Creative Writing
Falling in love with creative writing was easy for me. I grew up in a house with a mom who read all the time and took us to the library often. My brother and I got as many stories before bed as we wanted and there were always books everywhere.
I love writing because reading was always a priority. Here are some specific reasons why I started writing.
001: It was alone time.
I need more alone time than the average person. Writing provided that alone time while giving me some space to understand myself better.
I could sit alone in my room with a notebook and just write short stories or journal entries or random ideas that were in my head. It was the one place in my house growing up where there wasn’t a TV or a stereo playing. It was the one place where there weren’t a lot of people having conversations.
And because it was quiet, I could only hear my thoughts and let those thoughts communicate with me. I liked writing initially because it tickled my brain in a way that I enjoyed. I kept writing because it gave me a space to be alone with my thoughts.
002: I was always a daydreamer.
Even now, as an adult, I’m a daydreamer. I like making up stories in my head and probably will until the day I die. Last weekend I went to a concert and had a wild daydream mid-show about a movie that should never be made.
(It’s equal parts sacrilege, stupid idea, and wet puppets.)
But I had this idea because daydreaming is what I do.
Writing gave me a space to get the daydreams out of my head. It kind of legitimized them too, because as soon as I started writing the daydreams, I started writing stories. And I know it’s not super meaningful to brag about having the highest grade in your middle and high school creative writing class, but I did.
So there.
003: It was one of the few times I was in control.
One of the things I hated most about childhood was how out of control I always felt. Schedules didn’t make sense to me, people assumed I couldn’t understand stuff, and I had to go along with whatever the prescribed activity of the day was.
I hated it.
But when I was writing, I got to set the rules. I created whole worlds and characters and they did my bidding, not the other way around. And if it was the summer time, I got to write when I wanted, not when the teacher said it was creative writing time. Writing gave me the space to take control and express myself at the same time.
It was probably the first time I felt any sort of power in my own life.
Why I Love Creative Writing Even Now
The reasons I love creative writing are many. And it’s worth noting that the reasons I fell in love with creative writing listed above are some of the main reasons I love creative writing even now.
But ultimately, creative writing is communication to me. It’s the way I communicate with the world. I hate when people want to have in-person conversations about important topics and get a definitive answer by the end of that conversation. I need time and space to work through stuff, and I do that with writing. I can’t give the best answer if I’m only given a few minutes with the topic and expected to verbally work through it with someone else.
Writing is how I make sense of the world. And if there’s an area of my life I haven’t journaled about, it’s likely because I don’t want or need an answer or a deeper knowledge of it.
Writing is also how I achieve that flow state. You know, where you’re just putting words on the page and you have no idea where they’re coming from. It’s weird, but in those moments, I feel like a channel between the muse and page. I’m completely connected to my intuition and just going with my gut.
I love that sensation, and it’s one of the reasons why I love creative writing.
Without writing, I don’t get to feel that. I don’t get the feeling of unfettered creative productivity.
So, even thought writing is how I communicate with others and with myself, it’s how I communicate with my intuition, and maybe something bigger and higher than all that. I don’t really know what it is, and I guess that’s because I haven’t written about it yet.
But I do know that if I put my head down and started writing through it, I’d come to about an hour later with twenty pages and a clear conversation with a higher power.
Do You Love Creative Writing?
Have you ever gotten into the state of flow in your writing? Do you consider writing to be the best way you communicate with your own intuition? Did you like the feeling of control you experienced as a kid when you started writing?
Are there other reasons you love creative writing? Or, are there reasons you don’t like it? How do you think about creative writing and your relationship to it?
Originally published at https://marisamohi.com on July 6, 2022.
