Why write?

I sometimes ask myself why I write. What’s the purpose, or the drive behind writing out chicken scratches of ideas in a tattered old journal? Why transfer them to digital for editing and posting?

The unapologetic and selfish answer is, for me. I write for myself, unless I’ve been hired by someone. Then it’s different - but it’s also not my own. I don’t own it if someone paid me to write it, and I never kiss and tell. I’ve ghostwritten several books, and created countless articles and blog posts. But they don’t belong to me. So they’re not something I share.

But, on a deeper level, I write because I need to. Words burn through the solitude I so often seek, imprinting themselves onto me and into my life. The only outlet I’ve found for this is to express. To create. And so I do. This is why I created a SubStack. For me.

And I invite you to join me. Maybe it’s for drinks, or a walk in the park. Could be the sun is shining. We might be under moonlight too. But my favorite? The rain. Someone who can stand in the rain beside you, washed of all their style and standing, is someone who will stand with you forever. Even if they never remember you, they’ll remember the experience. And maybe the words too.

That’s why I write. Come stand with me in the rain. Maybe it’s cold, or hot. I can’t predict the weather, and I don’t promise to show you a good time. But I will bare myself on these pages. If you want to see my feet, though, you’ll have to find my OF (just kidding, I’m not there yet). Yet.

What do I write?

I write about chickens. They haunt my dreams. What are they scratching for? Why do they just lay eggs anywhere? Do the obese ones from Tyson’s Chicken have body image issues? It keeps me up at night.

But seriously… I love Literary Fiction. For me, there’s nothing better. If you can’t shape the world you live in, create one. Shape it with the deepest philosophies you know, and weave characters into a tapestry of magic and mystery. Where some of it’s true, and some maybe should have happened and didn’t. Except, in the story, it did happen. I found love, between the pages of a dream. It woke me in the night, and I couldn’t put down my pen anymore than I could stop myself from falling.

That’s what I write. The fall, and every bit of grace and redemption the freedom of screaming until you run out of breath gives you. Because if you’ve screamed all you have into the void, and you’re still falling, it’s time for reflection. It’s from that well I draw my inspiration. And where do I write?

Sometimes it’s under a bridge, between homes and on the way from one experience to the next. Other times I’m at a truck stop or pulled off into a mountain park on my motorcycle (thank Mac for this amazing battery life). My first book, Avtandil’s Quest, is a great example. I wrote the first 20 or so chapters on my phone, standing on a balcony in Batumi, Georgia. It was winter, and we had an unusually strong snow that year. I typed and tried voice to text for weeks, freezing my ass off, chain smoking, and drinking beer.

But I was alive. I was creating, and breathing a different kind of life into something worth every trial and tribulation I withstood. My time in Georgia was happy, but ultimately tragic. Yet the tragedy of those experiences birthed something I could never have created, were it not for the clarity of vision my predicament offered me.

That’s the what of why I write. Stick around, and we’ll get to the rest over pages.

Stay up-to-date

Why subscribe? Well, in a nutshell, it makes sharing my writing easier. You’ll get notifications, and the occasional newsletter when I post something. Also, it’s free. Being a paid subscriber is at your option, and not something I ever push. If you think the writing is worth a subscription, then I’m thrilled. But if you’re happy reading from the sidelines, more power to you. The important thing for me is that what I write adds value - and that you want to read it. That’s all. No compulsion, and no coercion, except perhaps for this amazingly well aged bod.

Thank you, and if you’d like to subscribe, there’s a button below. I could have put one at the top too, but then I’d be accused of esoteric leanings. As above, so below.

To learn more about the tech platform that powers this publication, visit Substack.com.