The Writer's Life: Is Writing a Choice or a Compulsion?

Do writers write by choice or by divine mandate? I recently had a conversation with a friend on this topic; he argued that writers choose to write, while I feel that writers are compelled to write in order to make sense out of life – whether through a novel or a local news byte -- to ignore the call is to go insane. (Some heed the call and still go insane, but that’s another blog entirely).

Freelance journalist and Suite101 Feature Writer Sarah Canice Funke received the call early on in life. “I think it happened sometime when I was 8 or 9,” she says, ”I had a number of stuffed animals, but instead of playing with them like any normal child, I would write illustrated stories of their adventures. The stories were short, the drawings cartoonish, the sentences simple and the plots rather uncomplicated, but they formed the basis for my future love of writing.”

Perhaps Sarah was too young then to make a conscious choice about writing, but as she grew older, her choices consistently propelled her in the same direction, towards writing. “In high school, I took an English Lit class and in college, I took so many Philosophy classes that they just turned into a second major. These classes taught me how to think on paper, offering a logical path for the reader to follow from beginning to end.” Thus, she continued to write.

And now, years later, what keeps Sarah writing? “Even if I have nothing to say, I still like to string words together until something comes out. Occasionally I get stuck trying to find ideas and need to take a break, walk away and get a fresh perspective. Yet I find that if I stay away from writing too long, I get antsy and need to go back to it.”

Choice or compulsion? What do you think?

--Fiona