Why write?

I remember it clearly. It was almost Dickensian, or something of a Disney film. A young wannabe learning from his mentor.

I was a naive student writer who only cared about publicising music events that my friends or I had organised. It was just an opportunity to get our rocks off and show off to girls, and I was all too happy to cover whatever suited me and my social life, turning in bad copy in the small hours of the morning.

I had been writing for the student paper and it had lead me to other contacts and publications. This was a local going out guide called City Life - Manchester's Time Out- and my editor was Marc Rowlands, a softly spoken mop haired Manc who loved clubs and DJs and music producers. He was guiding me through the best and worst parts of my latest piece. And if I remember it rightly, he said "...that writing is special. That being able to put your ideas out there, to express your opinion to a captive audience, to be published... is something to be respected."

And he was right.

It's taken me years to actually do it, but now I'm taking writing seriously. It's hard trying to explain your motives- showing off still has a lot to do with it- but the chance to write something worthwhile, that does justice to the people who have given you their time to read your self indulgence... that's not to be sniffed at.

George Orwell probably put it best:

When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art’. I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.

There's nothing more satisfying than being able to express your ideas using the written word, the ability to put your opinions out there. I think it was Dostoevsky who said we do not truly understand something until we put into words. But it's more than that. In writing we have a chance to represent who we are and what we think, to expose lies and challenge the world.

Having accepted that, you must then decide what value you think a book has. Perhaps one of the things that rankles with me is that writing a book is likely to affect no-one. Did 'Animal Farm' really stop Stalin killing? In the end, books are a very weak way of trying to achieve something for the greater good.

But it's easy to criticise, right? And it's also easy to sabotage your creativity, criticise your ideas and others, and thus not see the point in achieving anything. There's more to writing than just self-indulgence; if you have the privilege, luck or success to stir up one debate, or challenge one person's point of view- to get that 'hearing'- then that has to be worth it. Perhaps this is a step towards that. Next stop, presidencies and franchise restaurants.

So this blog is an invitation really to anyone who wants to write something beyond their means, or about more than just themselves. To try. Friends, peers, students and all. Do your worst.

In the meantime, check out the whole article here.