 
 The MuseWhy Do I Write?by Steve Myrick
 
     
	     The assignment comes in the form of a question: Why do I
	write?  Good question.  Far more difficult to answer than I
	first imagined.  After considerable thought, two answers evolve.
	One is right up there on the surface, and many readers of this
	fine electronic publication won't like it much.  The other is a
	little deeper, and I hope it will repair some of the damage.
	Let us deal with the first thing first.  Money.

	     I write for money.  For me, that is the whole idea.  This
	is my bread and butter.  I am not fanatical about filling my
	wallet, and I am certainly not in this game to get rich.  But I
	have managed to carve out a comfortable living by putting words
	together on a page.  It is not always the most interesting kind
	of writing, but sometimes it is.  It is not always the best
	paying assignment, but sometimes it is.  This is how I support
	my family.  And I need this job.  I don't know how to do
	anything else.
	
	     Before you condemn me to eternal writer's block, let me
	assure you that my byline has never, and will never appear in
	the National Enquirer.  You will not see my work on Hard Copy,
	or any of the endless Hard Copy copycats.  I am confident that
	those who read my work in Sailing Magazine, or Vermont Life, and
	those who see my work on WBZ-TV in Boston would judge it worthy
	of some standard.  When I say I write for money, I do not mean
	selling out.  I speak to many writers who toil happily away
	writing stories and novels and poems that never get published.
	I envy them their talent and their creative drive.  I read and
	admire their work.  I often wish I could do what they do, but I
	can not.  It would not put checks in may bank account,
	especially considering the dubious talent I would bring to such
	a venture.  I can not imagine doing what I do just for fun.  It
	is too difficult.  You have no idea how desperately I wish these
	sentences would roll out effortlessly, but they do not.  I have
	a recurring vision of words being squeezed out like hamburger
	from an old fashioned meat grinder.  It pops into my head about
	once every, oh, 3.7 seconds as I sit staring at my computer
	screen.  That is the kind of effort it takes for me to grind out
	a sentence.  It does not help much that the two hours I blocked
	out last night for writing evaporated when a cop was shot.  Nor
	does it help that the two hours I blocked out tonight
	disappeared while I worked on the story of a double homicide.
	That is not to say I do not enjoy the process.  The agony of the
	moment somehow emerges through some perverse brain filter as
	general satisfaction at a job well done.  I have had some very
	enjoyable assignments, some simple ones, and some which I
	probably would have done for free.  But I have never had an
	assignment where I felt like I did not earn my fee.  So it is
	the money thing.  That is what makes me write.

	     Yet it is not quite that simple, which brings us (rather
	neatly if I may be so presumptuous) to the second thing.  I hope
	it earns back a few friends I lost with the rhetoric above.  The
	words that you are reading are coming out with every bit as much
	momentary agony as any other assignment.  But by prior mutual,
	and quite happily arranged agreement, I will not be getting a
	fat check for these paragraphs.  Sort of punches a little hole
	in the money thing.  I was never strong on logic.  As near as I
	can figure, I have flipped the whole equation for this
	assignment.  I am paying a debt by giving away my work.  The
	publisher and editor of this electronic magazine provides me
	with endless hours of amusement, advice, stimulation, and
	encouragement.  She does not charge a fee when I sign on to the
	Pen & Brush bulletin board, so I will gladly donate a few pages
	of prose to the cause.  The larger truth is, I get a kick out of
	it all.  Maybe it is an ego thing.  Athletes live for the rare
	thrill of a winning shot at the buzzer.  Scientists celebrate
	when the natural puzzle fits together to reveal some paradigm
	shift in knowledge.  I like to pick up a magazine and see my
	work layed out on a page.  For me, there is no feeling in the
	world that compares.  It means I accomplished something
	difficult, something many try, but few succeed.  And it is all
	there on record for everyone to see.  Some even enjoy it.
	
	     The other day I walked into a newsstand with my three year
	old daughter, picked up a national magazine and thumbed to page
	53, where my byline appeared over an article about sailing
	environmentalists.  I stooped over and showed my daughter the
	sixteen point type, and she recognized a few of the letters.  A
	killer smile spread over her face when I explained to her that I
	wrote those words and took those photographs.  Maybe that is why
	I write.  Maybe I would do it for free, and I am just flat lucky
	that people pay me for it.


    Steve Myrick                        First Electronic Rights
    1054 Lowell Road                    815 words
    Groton, MA  01450                   Copyright:  (c) Steve Myrick 1993
