You are reading this right? You are currently reading my writing word by word, and interpreting each word as well. I write so that you can read, so that you may interpret my words. As I type these letters and words they have no meaning. You, the reader, put meaning in my writing so I write for you. I write so that you may give my words meaning and analyze them so that my ideas can take new life and we can both learn from them. But I admit it is not a purely selfless act. I also write for me. I write so that the thoughts that I have can have a physical representation. Even if you give my words a different meaning, I hope that we can agree on some things and we can both benefit from these words and each other. So why do I write? Unlike Joan Didion who sees writing as “say listen to me, see it my way, change your mind,” I write for us, so we may both interpret my work and learn from it or work off of it.
A writer needs a reader. Without a reader writing is nothing more than a waste of paper or memory. Speaking of the reader the poet Billy Collins says “it’s not that I cannot live without you,” however I disagree without the reader, Collins writing would be lost and if there was no reader to put meaning in his words than his writing would fall meaningless, dead. Without readers writing is no more than a complicated thought process, it would be only for the writer and that is where it’s so called life would end. But readers do not only give a writers work meaning. In talking about things he does not do to the reader, Collins lists that he does not “hold up my monstrous mirror” and even though writers can show the reflection of the reader in the writing we also see the writer in that mirror. Through the eyes of the reader we can see the personality and styles of the writer and improve them. So yes the writer does need the reader, and the writer also writes in ways so that he or she can keep their reader.
Every family has a storyteller, mine is no different. Although my mother would love to take the title, she is not; it is my brother Bill, the journalist, who takes this title for my family. Perhaps my brother’s favorite story to tell is of a time when my brothers and I were younger. When we were kids the middle child of me and my two brothers, Patrick, and my brother bill would fight, however pats tactics were a little different. As my brother will tell the story pat was thinking ahead, for on our deck, which was only a step up, we had folding chairs which pat would throw at my brother Billy’s knees. Bill will always blame these instances for his bad knees and admit defeat to my pat. The way Bill tells story like these is with much emotion and humor and is something that has always affected how I myself write or tell stories. My brother’s storytelling techniques have taught me how to use humor to drive a point or keep my listeners and readers interested in what is occasionally a boring subject.
So even though I have my techniques, and reasons for writing, and the readers to give my words meaning the question still exist whether or not I am a writer. I suppose it depends. Is anyone who sings a singer, and is the person who puts words on the paper the writer? Well if anyone who sings is a singer, than yes I have written so in that aspect I am a writer. However the words I put on the paper do not have meaning until the reader gives them meaning. So if it is the reader that gives the words meaning does that make them the writers? I believe that both are true, anyone who writes can be considered a writer and anyone who reads can also be considered a writer. We are all writers; I have no doubt of that, even if our paper and pen are only our thoughts. So yes I am a writer, and so is anyone reading this.
Bibliography
Collins, Billy. The Flight of the Reader
Didion. Joan. Why I Write
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