Why I Keep Writing

by: Bethany (website)

For some, music is not just a pastime,
It’s an undeniable fact of living,
A blissful slavery of mind, body and soul.
To rise above the ashes of mediocrity is rare,
Yet the gift of song is freely handed out to anyone who cares to receive it,
Instantly shattering our daily drudgery.

The path to pursue more than usual,
More than what is safe and known,
Is wrought with time-sharpened jagged blades that cut deep,
Blocking many from the road to something greater,
Beyond the stunted imagination of their peers.

Within the veins of the few,
passion fills every sinew with a sweet unquenchable purpose,
calming the fear of those treacherous paths.
Though each slice burns and bleeds,
still they take each cut

and wear the scars with pride to signal their choice,
that undying pursuit of greater joy within every chord.

And so they say – Watch Me Bleed.

Some of just have an identity. For me, I’m a writer. It’s one of the first ways I think of to describe myself. I can’t remember when I didn’t write; even before I could put pencil to paper my mind was full of stories and thoughts needing to be expressed. I don’t write because I think I’m good at it, and I certainly don’t write for money or fame. I write because I think I would forget how to breathe if I didn’t. I live to write and I write to live.

Sure, I could probably make a living off of it if I wanted, and that’s certainly a career path I’m considering. But it isn’t about that. My writing is about me and for me. I’m one of those people who lives constantly in a dreamworld, thinking, plotting and imagining while the world moves around me. I carry spare notebooks with me at all times because I just need to write. Notes I take in class are interrupted by random outbursts of thought and emotion. It’s in me and I have to let it out or I’m racked with anxiety beyond compare. It’s why I’m a very talkative person, too. I can’t keep anything inside me. Bottling up my emotions and thoughts is like a waking death to me. Is that melodramatic? Yes. Is it true? Yes.

Recently I’ve done a lot of reading on fandom. Fanlore.org, a fantastic primer for fandom, introduced me to the idea of “idfic” and something called the “id vortex.” I’m not a psychology major and I’ve only taken a few classes on the subject, but I’ve taken plenty of classes on literary theory. As far as I understand, what all those fancy Freudian words really mean is that fanfic writers have an overwhelming tendency to write about the deep and painful issues in our minds, in our subconsciousness. To write down to the bone. To make it hurt. It’s what the Greeks called catharsis. A purging of emotions through the arts; in this case, through fanfiction.

I started writing fanfiction when I was 12. I had just discovered the internet and the fandom world it contained, and it became my playground. At 14, when Hanson had become a huge presence in my life, I took up hanfic and I’ve rarely stopped to look back. Even during the years when I wasn’t publishing my writings online, those boys continued to inspire and inform what I wrote. I know that I’m not the only one who can say that.

So what keeps us writing? I can’t speak for everyone, but no other band has struck a chord with me like Hanson has. Their songs cut deep. Their songs keep me going. Their songs say what I want to say better than I ever could. Their songs say what I didn’t even know I felt. It all goes back to that whole id vortex thing. For whatever reason, those Hanson boys keep circling mine. Maybe it’s because I know they understand what it is need your art. To do anything it takes to let it out. All the proof of that is in the poem I ripped off for the title of this ramble. Maybe once again, they’ve said it better than I could.

Within the veins of the few,
passion fills every sinew with a sweet unquenchable purpose,
calming the fear of those treacherous paths.

Though each slice burns and bleeds,
still they take each cut
and wear the scars with pride to signal their choice,
that undying pursuit of greater joy within every chord.

And so they say – Watch Me Bleed.