why i like writing essay

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Why I Write

This material remains under copyright in some jurisdictions, including the US, and is reproduced here with the kind permission of  the Orwell Estate . The Orwell Foundation is an independent charity – please consider making a donation or becoming a Friend of the Foundation to help us maintain these resources for readers everywhere. 

From a very early age, perhaps the age of five or six, I knew that when I grew up I should be a writer. Between the ages of about seventeen and twenty-four I tried to abandon this idea, but I did so with the consciousness that I was outraging my true nature and that sooner or later I should have to settle down and write books.

I was the middle child of three, but there was a gap of five years on either side, and I barely saw my father before I was eight. For this and other reasons I was somewhat lonely, and I soon developed disagreeable mannerisms which made me unpopular throughout my schooldays. I had the lonely child’s habit of making up stories and holding conversations with imaginary persons, and I think from the very start my literary ambitions were mixed up with the feeling of being isolated and undervalued. I knew that I had a facility with words and a power of facing unpleasant facts, and I felt that this created a sort of private world in which I could get my own back for my failure in everyday life. Nevertheless the volume of serious – i.e. seriously intended ­– writing which I produced all through my childhood and boyhood would not amount to half a dozen pages. I wrote my first poem at the age of four or five, my mother taking it down to dictation. I cannot remember anything about it except that it was about a tiger and the tiger had ‘chair-like teeth’ – a good enough phrase, but I fancy the poem was a plagiarism of Blake’s ‘Tiger, Tiger’. At eleven, when the war or 1914-18 broke out, I wrote a patriotic poem which was printed in the local newspaper, as was another, two years later, on the death of Kitchener. From time to time, when I was a bit older, I wrote bad and usually unfinished ‘nature poems’ in the Georgian style. I also, about twice, attempted a short story which was a ghastly failure. That was the total of the would-be serious work that I actually set down on paper during all those years.

However, throughout this time I did in a sense engage in literary activities. To begin with there was the made-to-order stuff which I produced quickly, easily and without much pleasure to myself. Apart from school work, I wrote vers d’occasion , semi-comic poems which I could turn out at what now seems to me astonishing speed – at fourteen I wrote a whole rhyming play, in imitation of Aristophanes, in about a week – and helped to edit school magazines, both printed and in manuscript. These magazines were the most pitiful burlesque stuff that you could imagine, and I took far less trouble with them than I now would with the cheapest journalism. But side by side with all this, for fifteen years or more, I was carrying out a literary exercise of a quite different kind: this was the making up of a continuous “story” about myself, a sort of diary existing only in the mind. I believe this is a common habit of children and adolescents. As a very small child I used to imagine that I was, say, Robin Hood, and picture myself as the hero of thrilling adventures, but quite soon my “story” ceased to be narcissistic in a crude way and became more and more a mere description of what I was doing and the things I saw. For minutes at a time this kind of thing would be running through my head: ‘He pushed the door open and entered the room. A yellow beam of sunlight, filtering through the muslin curtains, slanted on to the table, where a matchbox, half-open, lay beside the inkpot. With his right hand in his pocket he moved across to the window. Down in the street a tortoiseshell cat was chasing a dead leaf,’ etc., etc. This habit continued until I was about twenty-five, right through my non-literary years. Although I had to search, and did search, for the right words, I seemed to be making this descriptive effort almost against my will, under a kind of compulsion from outside. The ‘story’ must, I suppose, have reflected the styles of the various writers I admired at different ages, but so far as I remember it always had the same meticulous descriptive quality.

When I was about sixteen I suddenly discovered the joy of mere words, i.e. the sounds and associations of words. The lines from Paradise Lost –

So hee with difficulty and labour hard Moved on: with difficulty and labour hee,

which do not now seem to me so very wonderful, sent shivers down my backbone; and the spelling ‘hee’ for ‘he’ was an added pleasure. As for the need to describe things, I knew all about it already. So it is clear what kind of books I wanted to write, in so far as I could be said to want to write books at that time. I wanted to write enormous naturalistic novels with unhappy endings, full of detailed descriptions and arresting similes, and also full of purple passages in which words were used partly for the sake of their sound. And in fact my first completed novel, Burmese Days , which I wrote when I was thirty but projected much earlier, is rather that kind of book.

I give all this background information because I do not think one can assess a writer’s motives without knowing something of his early development. His subject-matter will be determined by the age he lives in ­– at least this is true in tumultuous, revolutionary ages like our own – but before he ever begins to write he will have acquired an emotional attitude from which he will never completely escape. It is his job, no doubt, to discipline his temperament and avoid getting stuck at some immature stage, or in some perverse mood: but if he escapes from his early influences altogether, he will have killed his impulse to write. Putting aside the need to earn a living, I think there are four great motives for writing, at any rate for writing prose. They exist in different degrees in every writer, and in any one writer the proportions will vary from time to time, according to the atmosphere in which he is living. They are:

(i) Sheer egoism. Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood, etc., etc. It is humbug to pretend this is not a motive, and a strong one. Writers share this characteristic with scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, soldiers, successful business men – in short, with the whole top crust of humanity. The great mass of human beings are not acutely selfish. After the age of about thirty they abandon individual ambition – in many cases, indeed, they almost abandon the sense of being individuals at all – and live chiefly for others, or are simply smothered under drudgery. But there is also the minority of gifted, willful people who are determined to live their own lives to the end, and writers belong in this class. Serious writers, I should say, are on the whole more vain and self-centered than journalists, though less interested in money.

(ii) Aesthetic enthusiasm. Perception of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement. Pleasure in the impact of one sound on another, in the firmness of good prose or the rhythm of a good story. Desire to share an experience which one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed. The aesthetic motive is very feeble in a lot of writers, but even a pamphleteer or writer of textbooks will have pet words and phrases which appeal to him for non-utilitarian reasons; or he may feel strongly about typography, width of margins, etc. Above the level of a railway guide, no book is quite free from aesthetic considerations.

(iii) Historical impulse. Desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity.

(iv) Political purpose – using the word ‘political’ in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other people’s idea of the kind of society that they should strive after. Once again, no book is genuinely free from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.

It can be seen how these various impulses must war against one another, and how they must fluctuate from person to person and from time to time. By nature – taking your ‘nature’ to be the state you have attained when you are first adult – I am a person in whom the first three motives would outweigh the fourth. In a peaceful age I might have written ornate or merely descriptive books, and might have remained almost unaware of my political loyalties. As it is I have been forced into becoming a sort of pamphleteer. First I spent five years in an unsuitable profession (the Indian Imperial Police, in Burma), and then I underwent poverty and the sense of failure. This increased my natural hatred of authority and made me for the first time fully aware of the existence of the working classes, and the job in Burma had given me some understanding of the nature of imperialism: but these experiences were not enough to give me an accurate political orientation. Then came Hitler, the Spanish Civil War, etc. By the end of 1935 I had still failed to reach a firm decision. I remember a little poem that I wrote at that date, expressing my dilemma:

A happy vicar I might have been Two hundred years ago, To preach upon eternal doom And watch my walnuts grow But born, alas, in an evil time, I missed that pleasant haven, For the hair has grown on my upper lip And the clergy are all clean-shaven. And later still the times were good, We were so easy to please, We rocked our troubled thoughts to sleep On the bosoms of the trees. All ignorant we dared to own The joys we now dissemble; The greenfinch on the apple bough Could make my enemies tremble. But girls’ bellies and apricots, Roach in a shaded stream, Horses, ducks in flight at dawn, All these are a dream. It is forbidden to dream again; We maim our joys or hide them; Horses are made of chromium steel And little fat men shall ride them. I am the worm who never turned, The eunuch without a harem; Between the priest and the commissar I walk like Eugene Aram; And the commissar is telling my fortune While the radio plays, But the priest has promised an Austin Seven, For Duggie always pays. I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls, And woke to find it true; I wasn’t born for an age like this; Was Smith? Was Jones? Were you?

The Spanish war and other events in 1936-37 turned the scale and thereafter I knew where I stood. Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it. It seems to me nonsense, in a period like our own, to think that one can avoid writing of such subjects. Everyone writes of them in one guise or another. It is simply a question of which side one takes and what approach one follows. And the more one is conscious of one’s political bias, the more chance one has of acting politically without sacrificing one’s aesthetic and intellectual integrity.

What I have most wanted to do throughout the past ten years is to make political writing into an art. My starting point is always a feeling of partisanship, a sense of injustice. 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. But I could not do the work of writing a book, or even a long magazine article, if it were not also an aesthetic experience. Anyone who cares to examine my work will see that even when it is downright propaganda it contains much that a full-time politician would consider irrelevant. I am not able, and do not want, completely to abandon the world view that I acquired in childhood. So long as I remain alive and well I shall continue to feel strongly about prose style, to love the surface of the earth, and to take a pleasure in solid objects and scraps of useless information. It is no use trying to suppress that side of myself. The job is to reconcile my ingrained likes and dislikes with the essentially public, non-individual activities that this age forces on all of us.

It is not easy. It raises problems of construction and of language, and it raises in a new way the problem of truthfulness. Let me give just one example of the cruder kind of difficulty that arises. My book about the Spanish civil war, Homage to Catalonia , is of course a frankly political book, but in the main it is written with a certain detachment and regard for form. I did try very hard in it to tell the whole truth without violating my literary instincts. But among other things it contains a long chapter, full of newspaper quotations and the like, defending the Trotskyists who were accused of plotting with Franco. Clearly such a chapter, which after a year or two would lose its interest for any ordinary reader, must ruin the book. A critic whom I respect read me a lecture about it. ‘Why did you put in all that stuff?’ he said. ‘You’ve turned what might have been a good book into journalism.’ What he said was true, but I could not have done otherwise. I happened to know, what very few people in England had been allowed to know, that innocent men were being falsely accused. If I had not been angry about that I should never have written the book.

In one form or another this problem comes up again. The problem of language is subtler and would take too long to discuss. I will only say that of late years I have tried to write less picturesquely and more exactly. In any case I find that by the time you have perfected any style of writing, you have always outgrown it. Animal Farm was the first book in which I tried, with full consciousness of what I was doing, to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole. I have not written a novel for seven years, but I hope to write another fairly soon. It is bound to be a failure, every book is a failure, but I do know with some clarity what kind of book I want to write.

Looking back through the last page or two, I see that I have made it appear as though my motives in writing were wholly public-spirited. I don’t want to leave that as the final impression. All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist or understand. For all one knows that demon is simply the same instinct that makes a baby squall for attention. And yet it is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one’s own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane. I cannot say with certainty which of my motives are the strongest, but I know which of them deserve to be followed. And looking back through my work, I see that it is invariably where I lacked a political purpose that I wrote lifeless books and was betrayed into purple passages, sentences without meaning, decorative adjectives and humbug generally.

Gangrel , No. 4, Summer 1946

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Writing like a Boss

From the desk of Samantha R. Uhrig

7 Reasons I LOVE to Write (and 2 Reasons You Should, Too)

Hello, writers, and happy Valentine’s Day! Today we’re going over one of my favorite topics of all time: loving your writing. I wrote about it in May 2017 , which is my most favorite post to date. (You can check out it out as a sequel to this one!)

But instead of some ways to love your writing, today I’m going to share some reasons why  I  love to write. Because it’s healthy to remind yourself why you do what you do! It keeps you focused, and helps you stay dedicated to your work. And at the bottom of this post, there will be two reasons why you,  too, should love your writing. The point of my list is to inspire your own, so you can finish your novel or screenplay ASAP!

Okay, let’s get on with it, shall we?

Note: point 3 has been edited in the written post, so the paragraph is said differently in the video.

An almost unnecessary little note: in this video, I wore bubblegum-pink jeans to make up for my black shirt. I’m kinda disappointed it wasn’t actually shown, so just pretend for me.

7 REASONS I LOVE TO WRITE

1. because i can create anything in my wildest imagination..

This is why I write fantasy as a means of relaxing, or even as a comfort when I’m feeling low. Suspension of disbelief is how fiction is possible!

Suspension of disbelief, otherwise  sacrifice of realism and logic for the sake of enjoyment , enables readers to leave behind what they’ve learned from the real world to lose themselves in a work of pure fiction. This is how you can watch Star Wars without saying, “But that’s impossible! There’s no such thing as the Force!”

Because suspension of disbelief exists, I as the writer have the freedom to put to page whatever my mind conjures, and someone can read it without thinking it unusual. A marvelous concept, isn’t it?

2. Because the words are a comfort.

When I’m feeling unwell, I write. It’s so natural, I didn’t even realize my unconscious habit till recently.

But I’m careful to write something separate from my main project , or else it just creates more stress and problems. I’ll look up some writing- or character-prompts online, and create a new story from there. It’s even more relaxing on paper. They’re rarely finished, but  so  helpful for when I need to chill!

3. Because I want to leave my mark on the world.

I don’t know what the world will know of me in a hundred years. I intend to write many books and manuscripts in my lifetime, but how much of an impact will they make? Will I be a bestselling classic? A local hero? A name passed through the family? All but forgotten to the public? Only God knows (which is quite a comfort!).

The way I see it, the more stories I write, and the more I improve with each one, the better I’ll be remembered for my dedication. And if it’s just my parents, grandparents, and siblings – as well as my husband, children, grandchildren, etc. – who are proud of me and know who I am, it’s enough! I’m so thrilled for my future family to read all the projects on which I will have worked so hard. That is the ultimate motivation for me.

4. Because I love to inspire others.

This is why I blog, specifically. I absolutely  adore  the idea of inspiring even just one person to follow his or her passion, writing or otherwise, and this is one of the biggest reasons why I write!

Namely, I want to inspire young writers out there. I’m fairly young myself, which I’m slow to admit, I’ll confess, but I think this gives me a particular advantage at this point in my life. Young writers will look at my blog, my books, my business, and everything I’m building every day, and they’ll say to themselves, “If she can do this, maybe I can, too!”

I won’t be young forever, but I don’t believe my advantage in this respect will go away because of it! All the feats of my young life are (or will be) on paper, and they’re not going anywhere. Perhaps, the older I grow, and the more I accomplish, the more I will inspire others. That’s the hope, writers!

5. Because I can use it to learn about topics that interest me.

About two years ago, I got very “into” the World War II era (1939-1945). I wanted to learn more, but there was only so much interesting information I could retain from books and Wikipedia pages. I took it a step further, and used my few findings as a base for a novel called “What I Wish I Said But Never Did.” That novel later became  The Girl Who Frosts the Cakes !

Not only do I love that project dearly, but I learned  so much  about that time and culture in the process . Now I can spit out all sorts of miscellaneous facts about the era, like the price of a loaf of bread, or when and why women’s trousers became “the thing” in America, or the value of a dollar in 1940 vs. 1945.

It’s wild to think that this novel, which I’ve been rewriting and cutting and shaping with care for what feels like forever, just started with plain curiosity. I can’t wait to find my next big interest!

6. Because I can use it to express my loves, opinions, and beliefs.

I love many things. Vanilla cake, coffee, weddings, skirts, curly hair, close-knit friendships, bookshops, the smell of old paper, small businesses, and red lipstick are just a few of my earthly loves, and every one of those things is deliberately featured in my novel.

What about my opinions and beliefs? I’m careful to weave those in my writing, too! As a Christian, I firmly believe Jesus is King, and I strive to live in a way that pleases Him. I very badly want this to be clear in all my writing; even in fiction.

And finally:

7. I’m simply in love with words.

I open up a book, and I feel at home. I love to wander through secondhand bookstores, running my fingers over the cracked spines and worn covers. Whenever I hear or read words I like, I’ll write them down as a reminder to use them more. As a kid, I would  beg  for a spelling test. I even love how inconsistent our grammar rules are, how nothing makes sense. English is beautiful nonsense.

In the English language, we only have twenty-six letters; but those twenty-six letters make up over  171,476 words.  How amazing is that? Think about it: 171,476 +  unique words! And now imagine how many words are in other  languages, including words and phrases we can’t even comprehend in English. Language is a mind-boggling miracle, and I’m in love with all of it!

2 SIMPLE REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD LOVE YOUR WRITING, TOO

1. you’re more likely to stick to your project..

You wouldn’t put all that work into a project if you didn’t like it. Unless you write purely for money. In which case, I seriously doubt you would make it through the whole article to this point.

Case in point: if you love to write, you’re more likely to stick with – and finish! – your novel/screenplay/etc. How exciting is that?

And lastly, our final point of the evening:

2. It shows in your writing.

Believe it or not, you can tell when a writer doesn’t like his or her writing. It’s hard to describe, really. The best way I can think to explain is, it’s clear when someone has put love, care, and dedication into their work; in the reverse, it’s also apparent when someone  doesn’t.

Loving your writing is so, so important. If you don’t love to write – why do you do it?

I suggest keeping your very own “why I love to write” list. Tape it to your bathroom mirror, or on the shelf with your favorite cereal bowl, and update it often, because we’re always changing (which is a good thing!). This will keep you from getting discouraged, and thereby, you’ll be more productive in your writing!

I hope you enjoyed this special post! Don’t forget to check out 5 Little Ways to Love Your Writing as a sequel, and laugh along with us in this blooper reel! Happy writing!

5 Little Ways to Love Your Writing (And Why it’s Important)

2 responses to “7 Reasons I LOVE to Write (and 2 Reasons You Should, Too)”

You have certainly inspired me! I often have trouble believing my writing is actually worth reading. I’m in the process of climbing out of that pit called “writer’s block,” and this post has given me some of the strength to do just that. Thanks!

I’m so glad to have helped, Paige! I struggle with the very same problems. I just like to remember: there is always at least one person who wants to read our writing. Happy writing!

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Joan Didion: Why I Write

"i write entirely to find out what i’m thinking, what i’m looking at, what i see and what it means.".

Of course I stole the title for this talk from George Orwell. One reason I stole it was that I like the sound of the words: Why I Write. There you have three short unambiguous words that share a sound, and the sound they share is this:

In many ways, writing is the act of saying I, of imposing oneself upon other people, of saying listen to me, see it my way, change your mind . It’s an aggressive, even a hostile act. You can disguise its aggressiveness all you want with veils of subordinate clauses and qualifiers and tentative subjunctives, with ellipses and evasions—with the whole manner of intimating rather than claiming, of alluding rather than stating—but there’s no getting around the fact that setting words on paper is the tactic of a secret bully, an invasion, an imposition of the writer’s sensibility on the reader’s most private space.

I stole the title not only because the words sounded right but because they seemed to sum up, in a no-nonsense way, all I have to tell you. Like many writers I have only this one “subject,” this one “area”: the act of writing. I can bring you no reports from any other front. I may have other interests: I am “interested,” for example, in marine biology, but I don’t flatter myself that you would come out to hear me talk about it. I am not a scholar. I am not in the least an intellectual, which is not to say that when I hear the word “intellectual” I reach for my gun, but only to say that I do not think in abstracts. During the years when I was an undergraduate at Berkeley I tried, with a kind of hopeless late-adolescent energy, to buy some temporary visa into the world of ideas, to forge for myself a mind that could deal with the abstract.

In short I tried to think. I failed. My attention veered inexorably back to the specific, to the tangible, to what was generally considered, by everyone I knew then and for that matter have known since, the peripheral. I would try to contemplate the Hegelian dialectic and would find myself concentrating instead on a flowering pear tree outside my window and the particular way the petals fell on my floor. I would try to read linguistic theory and would find myself wondering instead if the lights were on in the Bevatron up the hill. When I say that I was wondering if the lights were on in the Bevatron you might immediately suspect, if you deal in ideas at all, that I was registering the Bevatron as a political symbol, thinking in shorthand about the military-industrial complex and its role in the university community, but you would be wrong. I was only wondering if the lights were on in the Bevatron, and how they looked. A physical fact.

I had trouble graduating from Berkeley, not because of this inability to deal with ideas—I was majoring in English, and I could locate the house-and-garden imagery in The Portrait of a Lady as well as the next person, “imagery” being by definition the kind of specific that got my attention—but simply because I had neglected to take a course in Milton. For reasons which now sound baroque I needed a degree by the end of that summer, and the English department finally agreed, if I would come down from Sacramento every Friday and talk about the cosmology of Paradise Lost , to certify me proficient in Milton. I did this. Some Fridays I took the Greyhound bus, other Fridays I caught the Southern Pacific’s City of San Francisco on the last leg of its transcontinental trip. I can no longer tell you whether Milton put the sun or the earth at the center of his universe in Paradise Lost , the central question of at least one century and a topic about which I wrote ten thousand words that summer, but I can still recall the exact rancidity of the butter in the City of San Francisco’s dining car, and the way the tinted windows on the Greyhound bus cast the oil refineries around Carquinez Strait into a grayed and obscurely sinister light. In short my attention was always on the periphery, on what I could see and taste and touch, on the butter, and the Greyhound bus. During those years I was traveling on what I knew to be a very shaky passport, forged papers: I knew that I was no legitimate resident in any world of ideas. I knew I couldn’t think. All I knew then was what I couldn’t do. All I knew then was what I wasn’t, and it took me some years to discover what I was.

Which was a writer.

By which I mean not a “good” writer or a “bad” writer but simply a writer, a person whose most absorbed and passionate hours are spent arranging words on pieces of paper. Had my credentials been in order I would never have become a writer. Had I been blessed with even limited access to my own mind there would have been no reason to write. I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear. Why did the oil refineries around Carquinez Strait seem sinister to me in the summer of 1956? Why have the night lights in the Bevatron burned in my mind for twenty years? What is going on in these pictures in my mind?

When I talk about pictures in my mind I am talking, quite specifically, about images that shimmer around the edges. There used to be an illustration in every elementary psychology book showing a cat drawn by a patient in varying stages of schizophrenia. This cat had a shimmer around it. You could see the molecular structure breaking down at the very edges of the cat: the cat became the background and the background the cat, everything interacting, exchanging ions. People on hallucinogens describe the same perception of objects. I’m not a schizophrenic, nor do I take hallucinogens, but certain images do shimmer for me. Look hard enough, and you can’t miss the shimmer. It’s there. You can’t think too much about these pictures that shimmer. You just lie low and let them develop. You stay quiet. You don’t talk to many people and you keep your nervous system from shorting out and you try to locate the cat in the shimmer, the grammar in the picture.

Just as I meant “shimmer” literally I mean “grammar” literally. Grammar is a piano I play by ear, since I seem to have been out of school the year the rules were mentioned. All I know about grammar is its infinite power. To shift the structure of a sentence alters the meaning of that sentence, as definitely and inflexibly as the position of a camera alters the meaning of the object photographed. Many people know about camera angles now, but not so many know about sentences. The arrangement of the words matters, and the arrangement you want can be found in the picture in your mind. The picture dictates the arrangement. The picture dictates whether this will be a sentence with or without clauses, a sentence that ends hard or a dying-fall sentence, long or short, active or passive. The picture tells you how to arrange the words and the arrangement of the words tells you, or tells me, what’s going on in the picture. Nota bene:

It tells you.

You don’t tell it.

Let me show you what I mean by pictures in the mind. I began Play It as It Lays just as I have begun each of my novels, with no notion of “character” or “plot” or even “incident.” I had only two pictures in my mind, more about which later, and a technical intention, which was to write a novel so elliptical and fast that it would be over before you noticed it, a novel so fast that it would scarcely exist on the page at all. About the pictures: the first was of white space. Empty space. This was clearly the picture that dictated the narrative intention of the book—a book in which anything that happened would happen off the page, a “white” book to which the reader would have to bring his or her own bad dreams—and yet this picture told me no “story,” suggested no situation. The second picture did. This second picture was of something actually witnessed. A young woman with long hair and a short white halter dress walks through the casino at the Riviera in Las Vegas at one in the morning. She crosses the casino alone and picks up a house telephone. I watch her because I have heard her paged, and recognize her name: she is a minor actress I see around Los Angeles from time to time, in places like Jax and once in a gynecologist’s office in the Beverly Hills Clinic, but have never met. I know nothing about her. Who is paging her? Why is she here to be paged? How exactly did she come to this? It was precisely this moment in Las Vegas that made Play It as It Lays begin to tell itself to me, but the moment appears in the novel only obliquely, in a chapter which begins:

Maria made a list of things she would never do. She would never: walk through the Sands or Caesar’s alone after midnight. She would never: ball at a party, do S-M unless she wanted to, borrow furs from Abe Lipsey, deal. She would never: carry a Yorkshire in Beverly Hills.

That is the beginning of the chapter and that is also the end of the chapter, which may suggest what I meant by “white space.”

I recall having a number of pictures in my mind when I began the novel I just finished, A Book of Common Prayer . As a matter of fact one of these pictures was of that Bevatron I mentioned, although I would be hard put to tell you a story in which nuclear energy figures. Another was a newspaper photograph of a hijacked 707 burning on the desert in the Middle East. Another was the night view from a room in which I once spent a week with paratyphoid, a hotel room on the Colombian coast. My husband and I seemed to be on the Colombian coast representing the United States of America at a film festival (I recall invoking the name Jack Valenti a lot, as if its reiteration could make me well), and it was a bad place to have fever, not only because my indisposition offended our hosts but because every night in this hotel the generator failed. The lights went out. The elevator stopped. My husband would go to the event of the evening and make excuses for me and I would stay alone in this hotel room, in the dark. I remember standing at the window trying to call Bogotá (the telephone seemed to work on the same principle as the generator) and watching the night wind come up and wondering what I was doing eleven degrees off the equator with a fever of 103. The view from that window definitely figures in A Book of Common Prayer , as does the burning 707, and yet none of these pictures told me the story I needed.

The picture that did, the picture that shimmered and made these other images coalesce, was of the Panama airport at 6 am. I was in this airport only once, on a plane to Bogotá that stopped for an hour to refuel, but the way it looked that morning remained superimposed on everything I saw until the day I finished A Book of Common Prayer . I lived in that airport for several years. I can still feel the hot air when I step off the plane, can see the heat already rising off the tarmac at 6:00 a.m. I can feel the skirt damp and wrinkled on my legs. I can feel the asphalt stick to my sandals. I remember the big tail of a Pan American plane floating motionless down at the end of the tarmac. I remember the sound of a slot machine in the waiting room. I could tell you that I remember a particular woman in the airport, an American woman, a norteamericana , a thin norteamericana about forty who wore a big square emerald in lieu of a wedding ring, but there was no such woman there.

I put this woman in the airport later. I made this woman up, just as I later made up a country to put the airport in, and a family to run the country. This woman in the airport is neither catching a plane nor meeting one. She is ordering tea in the airport coffee shop. In fact she is not simply “ordering” tea but insisting that the water be boiled, in front of her, for twenty minutes. Why is this woman in this airport? Why is she going nowhere, where has she been? Where did she get that big emerald? What derangement, or disassociation, makes her believe that her will to see the water boiled can possibly prevail?

She had been going to one airport or another for four months, one could see it, looking at the visas on her passport. All those airports where Charlotte Douglas’s passport had been stamped would have looked alike. Sometimes the sign on the tower would say “BIENVENIDOS” and sometimes the sign on the tower would say “BIENVENUE,” some places were wet and hot and others were dry and hot, but at each of these airports the pastel concrete walls would rust and stain and the swamp off the runway would be littered with the fuselages of cannibalized Fairchild F-227s and the water would need boiling.

I knew why Charlotte went to the airport even if Victor did not. I knew about airports.

These lines appear about halfway through A Book of Common Prayer , but I wrote them during the second week I worked on the book, long before I had any idea where Charlotte Douglas had been or why she went to airports. Until I wrote these lines I had no character called Victor in mind: the necessity for mentioning a name, and the name Victor, occurred to me as I wrote the sentence. I knew why Charlotte went to the airport sounded incomplete. I knew why Charlotte went to the airport even if Victor did not carried a little more narrative drive. Most important of all, until I wrote these lines I did not know who “I” was, who was telling the story. I had intended until that moment that the “I” be no more than the voice of the author, a nineteenth-century omniscient narrator. But there it was:

“I knew why Charlotte went to the airport even if Victor did not.”

“I knew about airports.”

This “I” was the voice of no author in my house. This “I” was someone who not only knew why Charlotte went to the airport but also knew someone called Victor. Who was Victor? Who was this narrator? Why was this narrator telling me this story? Let me tell you one thing about why writers write: had I known the answer to any of these questions I would never have needed to write a novel.

__________________________________

Excerpted from Let Me Tell You What I Mean by Joan Didion. Copyright © 2021 by Joan Didion. Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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Why Do We Write? 4 Key Reasons Why Telling and Sharing Stories Matters

by Joe Bunting | 214 comments

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Why do we write? Nonfiction and fiction writing has been an instrumental way for people to connect to one another in the real world.

Stories are about change, and by reading and watching them we, ourselves, can change for the better.

But do people write for different reasons, and are some of those reasons more meaningful than others?

Are you sitting at your computer right now, possibly plunging through your first draft (or much later draft), and debating whether or not a writing career is the one for you?

Do you wonder if the written word is how you'll make your mark on the world—and if it is, is a writing career what you want in life?

Why Telling and Sharing Stories Matters

It's safe to say there are more writers now than at any other time in history.

At the beginning of my writing career, I went to the AWP conference in Chicago, eager to learn and excited to start making connections with other writers. There were 10,000 other writers there. That was one conference years back.

Back when I first wrote this post, in 2012, the amount of creative writing programs at universities had exploded from about 50 in the 1980s to over 300 just in the US. There were over 110 million bloggers running their own blogs.

By now, I'm sure the numbers have only increased.

That's a lot of competition.

Seriously though, why do we write? Why are all of us pursuing writing in the face of the increasingly limited attention spans of the broader public?

It's not like we're making much money at it, if any.

What motivates us to keep going? How does writing make a positive difference in our own life, and in the lives of those around us?

4 Reasons Why We Write

Whether or not we're writing short stories for a high school assignment, finishing novels that we self-publish on Amazon, or writing full-time with the success of notable authors like Stephen King (wouldn't that be amazing?), we write for many reasons.

However, there are four main reasons why I write. I wonder if these will resonate with you:

1. To Be Alive

We write to be fully alive.

Sir Ken Robinson says:

The arts especially address the idea of aesthetic experience. An aesthetic experience is one in which your senses are operating at their peak; when you’re present in the current moment; when you’re resonating with the excitement of this thing that you’re experiencing; when you are fully alive.

The act of writing draws us into the moment. We see the blades of grass, hear the sharp chirp of the morning cricket, watch the shade travel from one edge of the yard to the other, seemingly for the first time.

Writing helps us make art out of everyday life, those ordinary moments we might otherwise overlook.

With each piece of writing, we're invited to see the world from a fresh perspective.

We seize an opportunity to ground ourselves in a point of view that can be our own—or that of a new character. One who waits eagerly to teach us something special about ourselves and our potentials.

Writing gives us a surplus of moments to really sympathize with a person, explore a world, and learn from a story in a way that reminds us what really matters in life.

We engender a growth mindset through writing—and writing deeply.

A writing life is rich with truth and adventures that bring our very beings to life.

2. To Make a Name for Ourselves

George Orwell says one motivation to write is sheer egoism, that we write out of the “desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on the grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood, etc., etc.”

That's part of it, but I think the motivation goes much deeper than being well-liked in the present moment.

If you're being honest, you would agree that it would be nice to live forever. But if you can't live forever physically, then why can't your memory live forever?

We're still talking about Chaucer, Virginia Woolf, Mark Twain, and George Elliott long after their deaths. Why not you?

While this might not be the most unselfish of motivations, it's certainly natural. Writers who share their stories build a legacy that will also beyond their lifetimes.

Writing lets us make a mark on the present world and future generations—if writers have the courage to print their stories on paper, and then pass it on to a reader.

And, with some luck, that readers passes that story on to another reader, who passes it on again.

3. To Change the World

People consume now more than ever in the history of the world.

We eat more, we listen to more music, and we consume more information. However, we've also learned enough about consumerism to know it won't make us happy.

Writing gives us a chance to turn the tides on consumerism. Rather than consume more, we can make something.

Instead of fueling destruction, we empower creation. Isn't that exciting?

Every day, when you put your fingers to the keys, you're creating something. And then, with the click of button, you can share it with the world.

Humans have a built in need to make our mark on the world. We want to bring new things to life, to mold things into the image we have in our imaginations, to subdue the earth.

We write not just to change the world, but to create a new world.

And with each new world, new possibilities.

New stories, which not only complete the circle of life but enrich it.

4. To Discover Meaning

The psychiatrist Victor Frankl posited that the main search of mankind is not happiness or pleasure but meaning. “Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose,” he wrote in Man's Search for Meaning .

Writers are uniquely gifted to find meaning for themselves and to help others find meaning.

In fact, this has always been the main task of storytellers. Every story matters to the person living it, and our job is to tell the universal stories, the stories that reveal the story of every person on the earth.

We write to bring meaning to the world.

That goal isn't synonymous with writing a best seller on the  New York Times  list—although, wouldn't that be nice?

You never know whose life your story could change.

That's why, deep down, we, as writers, understand that it's important to not only start but finish what we write.

We All Have Stories to Tell

Regardless of how many copies of a book you sell, stories share meaning and messages with patterns, and those patterns are absorbed and retained by people reaching out to the world for answers.

Each of our lives is a precious story in itself. And each of of us has an unlimited amount of stories to tell.

I hope that you will write your stories down for us. If your goal is to write your dream book in the new year, I hope you'll consider joining our writing community to get the support you deserve. Check out our Pro Practice Community today.  

What do you think? Why do you write, and why are there so many people writing today? Let us know in the comments .

Today, spend some time free writing. As you write, contemplate your motivations. Are they pure enough to keep you going despite everything?

Write for fifteen minutes . When you're finished, post your practice in the Pro Practice Workshop , and be sure to leave feedback on a few posts by other writers.

Joe Bunting

Joe Bunting is an author and the leader of The Write Practice community. He is also the author of the new book Crowdsourcing Paris , a real life adventure story set in France. It was a #1 New Release on Amazon. Follow him on Instagram (@jhbunting).

Want best-seller coaching? Book Joe here.

214 Comments

I write to help myself. I have to write or something very important is missing. I write to help others too. That’s it plain and simple. 

It’s interesting to think that is a ton of competition, but I personally think that is a very large audience. We are in this together. Writers read. If you write something Joe, I’ll most likely read it.  

Agreed, Jim.

Thanks 🙂 Although my next post is about how Jimi Hendrix is the most overrated guitarist ever. Shoot.

rapidly clicking unsubscribe..and unfriending… 😉 

I like your thought of a large audience.  

You know thinking of the large audience and thinking of how many writers here I honestly enjoy.  Not only are most writers readers, most of us read more than we write.  Or at least I do.  I wonder if that’s true for most of us.  If I had written as much as I’ve read in my lifetime my hands would have fallen off long ago.  

I agree with you. I think having more writers enter the fray is only a good thing for writers and writing.

Agreed. It reminds me of when I used to work at an antiques store, in a small town on a main street lined with antique stores. The owner of the place where I worked always talked about how all the other stores being around was good for everyone more than it was competition. And they all kind of looked out for each other. Same thing with writers/readers.

I’ll read what you write too Joe, unless you put something bad about J.K.Rowling in the title. I can’t stand writing snobs. I’m way too low-brow for that 😉

I just changed the title of my next post. Why Jimi Hendrix and JK Rowling Are For Musical and Literary Infants Respectively (But Not Respectfully).

Cue the crickets and the silence!

Oh my goodness, too funny! It doesn’t work without the bit in brackets.

I was just thinking to myself the other day…why do I write?  I sat and made a list of a zillion reasons why I do, but when it all boils down, these four categories are why. Although I dream to be published one day, for now, writing is my outlet and my best friend.  Beautiful post!

Thanks, Malia. I’m glad I got them all 🙂

It’s a good question and a hard one to answer simply. I think it’s good for the soul, to write. Like the number pi the soul goes on forever and I think we write because we want our words to go on forever in some way. Plus, for me, it soothes the soul and provides an outlet that keeps me alive and gives release to the voices in my head …

I like the idea that the soul goes on and on like pi! All the more reason to just keep letting the words flow out, because you can never run out!

Hi Joe! Good post (as usual) and good question. Why do I write? Because I enjoy it. I enjoy creating new worlds, placing characters in them, and then seeing what happens. It’s pure entertainment for me and hopefully for my readers. If there is a deeper meaning to my writing, aside from my being a hopeful romantic, it’s subliminal. If that makes me shallow, then shallow I shall be. I read to be entertained and I write to do the same.

This is definitely a good recipe for a lifelong love affair with writing! I don’t think there is anything shallow about creating for the pure enjoyment of it.

 Thank you, Misaralee. It took years for me to realize that writing for my own enjoyment wasn’t wrong and that trying to write in a manner unnatural to my own WAS wrong. Now, I work hard to put down the best effort I can and hope folks like reading it as much as I did writing it.

Hey that subliminal stuff will rise up out of the writing if you keep working.   I took a workshop once and submitted a story about two women with the same name who were very different.  I thought it was just a funny story with funny characters but I got remarks about theme and underlying meaning.  I think it did have some of that but I didn’t know it when I wrote it.  Of course maybe people were just being workshop students who felt they needed to say something that sounded good.  I hope not. 

 True enough, Marianne. Theme is often unconscious and the writer may not discover it until after the piece is complete. I’m sure your fellow workshoppers were sincere. I’m just saying that I’m not a writer on a mission – except to entertain.

There is a filmstrip in my head that will not stop running until I put it down on paper. I must write so I can view the next film in my head.

DO IT! Then post it here. 🙂

I write for the same reason that I bake: I want someone to take a taste and tell me it’s yummy and then I tell them that I substituted wheat bran for white flour and it’s actually very healthy.

I LOVE that, Nora.

Great analogy, Nora. My wife tries to pull that on me occasionally, but I’m on to her.

Love that! Then, you should say to them “BOOM! You just got WHEAT BRAN’D.”

The electricity of words was thought to be expendable and a drain on the central power grid and so the ever logical lizard ordered rolling blackouts centered on that once thriving bohemian village. The residents were given rations in exchange for copy writing and editing work for the central brain corporation, delivering dead fish words to the external overlords who kept the roof over our head and the fridge stocked with hotdogs. The life I had thought extinguished became a refugee, deep where the sharp, sanitizing talons of despair and self-preservation could not liquidate it. But oh bliss, the grid is flooded with excess energy. The words sneak up and surprise my conscious mind with their freedom and the visceral strength of expression. Did I really write that? How could such guttural expression have come from me, the cube dwelling citizen of this plastic empire? I bring myself to tears with the release of emotions and truths I had buried deep in an unconscious place. The lamp of words lightens up my heart and draws out the poison and the passion that had buried itself there. And now I write for sheer joy of playing with words. Building towers and landscapes with strokes of a pen. Eliciting surprised laughter from a friend when I turn a unique phrase in conversation, balancing cliché on its head. I have the smug satisfaction of being the master of blank spaces, giving form to emptiness with ink and pixels. Corralling the world without limitations, without expense or need of materials, only my fingers and the blank space. Signal the engineer to open the flood gates! Make inkblots on the page! The more abstract the better. The more spontaneous and unconscious, the wilder and more beautiful the art is to me.

Wow Missaralee.  That was like poetry.  “the life I thought . .could not liquidate it”. That is amazing.  I think you should clean this up and submit it to one of the very experimental literary journals.  There are some amazing sentences and thoughts in this piece.  

Thank you Marianne, that is incredibly kind! Your comment has encouraged me to keep working on this piece, we’ll see what happens.

I love the imagery!

Thanks Yalí, so glad you enjoyed it!

Oh, cube dwelling citizen of plaztic empire… your piece caught my eye immediately and kept on thrilling me.  Good stuff, Missaralee!

Thanks PJreece! The plastic empire is daily providing new fodder for my cannons 😉

This does read like poetry, especially the line about building towers.  Beautiful work!

This isn’t just an exercise for me, it is a repeating question in my mind the past couple of months.  I’ve come up with a few reasons.

I mainly began to write out loud because I was emboldened by my father’s death in January.  Some deep need in me to make a difference in the the world.  Time slipping through my fingers.  It’s getting away.  What have I done? How have I impacted others?

I write to open my heart and soul to friends and family.  To offer myself in love.  Perhaps to encourage someone.  Maybe connect on some deeper heart level and let them know that they are not alone.  That I am not alone.  

I write to encourage.  Self worth can be elusive as a stay at home mom.  Somewhere I read “If you want to change the world, put pen to paper.”  It has wrapped around my heart.  I hear it when I am struggling to find my identity in the midst of changing diapers, doing laundry, cooking, cleaning.  I know people are running about in the outside world making a difference, running for senate, serving the poor hot meals, standing arm in arm protesting for a belief.  All the while, I am bent over little loves, wiping noses, kissing hurts, and feeding hungry little mouths.  I can’t help but wonder how many other people question if what they are doing “counts.”  If indeed it will make a difference.   

And finally, I write as an artistic outlet.  I may not have the time I crave to put brightly colored oil paint to white canvas as I once did, but I can express myself through this new found art.  Beautiful, challenging, poetic word art.  

Okay, so are we really just supposed to stick to the 15 mins??  I would really like to go back and edit/ change some things.  But for my first exercise I suppose I’ll stick to the rules.

Good to see you here, Ali 🙂

I love that idea, “Writing out loud.” Great image for blogging.

And yes, if you don’t write for exactly 15 minutes you get fired from The Write Practice. 😉 No mostly, it’s a good limit so people can read and give feedback. 

Fired first day.  Rats.

Hey, when will the next “show off contest” subject be posted?  That sounds fun!  And challenging!  Thanks for all the work you have put into this site.  Really great job!

We’ll post the next contest in the first week of August. You should definitely join in. 

Of course, Ali. I don’t know what I would do without it.

Okay Joe, so this community you’ve helped to bring together are super sweet and encouraging.  Awesome.

Just wait. They’re like sirens. They suck you in and then stab you in the back. 

Just kidding community. I love you.

It’s a clock-in, clock-out system isn’t it Joe?

That reminds me: I entered an incorrect punch on my time card. Who do I see about getting a manual override of my time put in?

See el head honcho, numero uno, big boss man, Oz, King Bunting about that Brian. He won’t handle it himself of course. But he can redirect you a thousand times, to the drudges who work in the basement. Hope that helps!

1. You’re a clown, Brian. 2. You’re a munchkin, Yvette. The Oz variety.

Beautifully said Ali.  I like all of it but I like that you said writing is a way to connect on a deeper level with your loved ones. I never thought about it that way but it’s true that we can put on paper and read what others had on paper carefully and slowly.  When people talk it’s so fast and affected by the moment that we may not be able to get what’s real for us out or hear what’s real for others.  Sometimes I feel like I know Virginia Woolf better than I do my sisters, and I definitely know her better than I do acquaintances that I encounter frequently. 

Marianne, I know exactly what you mean!  I love to get inside people’s head through reading.  People are sometimes much more open when no one is sitting in front of them.  The small talk is cut, and the real heart revealed.

This is so encouraging! You are not alone and everything you do counts. In writing you capture those moments of love and care and then you can turn them over in your hands like the precious jems they are, revealing the flashes of multi-coloured light.

Missaralee, thank you for comparing the wiping of noses and other “love and care moments” to “precious jems”.    I’ll try and think of them that way tomorrow.  It will probably make me laugh or smile at some point!  

Ali, you are making a diffence in the world. Being a mom is one of the most important job a person can do. All the things you are doing is important and are part of who you are.

Word art is a part of you also along with oil painting.

Who you are is a creator. A great quality to have.

Thank you BJ house writer.  🙂  It’s nice to hear that I am making a splash in the world, even if God is the only one who can see it most days.   I like thinking of myself as a creator.  That’s fun.  Thanks!

You are a vital influence to the lives of a future generation.  A stay at home mom is priceless.  Your impact on others is seen through the character of your children and the respect of your husband.  

Keep writing.

Thanks for the encouragement Shelley!  A stay at home is priceless!  Not always glamorous, but God is teaching me so much through this process.  And most days I love it!  🙂  

so how do I link my name to my blog address??  hmmm…. help anyone? 

Anne Frank said that paper is more patient than men (and I suppose, women) and I have found that it is true. Writing has helped me through dark times, it has been   an outlet, a way to put order in my head and my heart. 

Right now, I am writing a story about my great-grandparents, whom I never knew, because it is a part of our family history that no one really knows about. I *need* to tell this story, even if half of it is made up. The same goes for other stories; I just *need* to tell them.

I do the same for my family.  It helps to tie things together I think.  

I love that idea about paper being more patient than men! I always long to be able to say outloud, exactly what I would write in the moment, rather than the spit-flecked word jumble that usually tumbles out.

Strange as it may sound to say, I write because I have to.  I feel an urge to tell stories and would do so whether people listened or not.

I agree, I think writers write because they have to, whether anyone’s listening.

You’re not alone, RD. 🙂

This is true. I had an art professor in college who once talked about how creative people get cranky if something’s keep them from being creative. If I don’t write, make art, do something creative, too many days in a row, I become a straight up crumb bum.

The fuchsia blossoms of a crept myrtle floated on rain water that had fallen into two large terra cotta saucers.  A black and white chicken pecked at the water.  It was what’s called a Wyandotte, the feathers were white edged in black, resulting in a chicken dressed in lace, a chicken bride.  She bent to drink from the terra cotta saucers. Dale sat cross legged on the porch in a plastic chair with metal legs, a sketch pad in her lap, a colored pencil in her hand, a fuchsia colored pencil.  The farm was a jumble of broken things, cars, bathtubs, refrigerators, and assorted boards and pieces of siding.  Ivy and honeysuckle grew over the junk but new junk appeared. 

To Dale’s left iris and a bird bath grew with more chickens pecking for bugs.  In the concrete birdbath a bright green trailing plant flourished.  To the right was another garden.  That garden of marigolds and rock roses marked the grave of an old gun dog who had guarded the farm for his lifetime.  Dale wanted to draw the scene or part of it because she wanted to remember the great beauty here, that sprang forth in summer to cover the rusted, grey discarded things on the old farm.  It was a place that told the true tale of life and death to Dale.  She felt in adequate to the task. 

There was an arch of ivy growing between two trees that stood on either side of a trail that led away from the house.  She saw her niece there in a wedding dress beside her wife.  They would be married here because no one would have them in town.  They will have to be married in the summer – thought Dale – the winter here is too depressing, and she wondered what would be summer and winter for them, those two young girls?  How would they get through?  She worried. 

The hen pecked at the water in the saucer.  A dog was watching her. 

“You can’t keep chickens and dogs like that,” Dale had told her. “Once a dog kills a chicken it will kill more, no matter how much you train it not to.”

“No she just did that because she was an adolescent,” said Dale’s sister, talking about the dog.  “She knows better now.”

Dale lifted the pencil and began again on her drawing of fuchsia blossoms floating in terra cotta saucers.  

The chicken with her lacy wings pecked and then stood in the saucer with her big three toed feet that looked reptilian like the feet of a dragon.  

The dog lay in the sun and watched for a while, then it slept.  

Sorry for the bad punctuation in that piece.  I want to edit it but I’m not able to go back into it and fix it.  I wrote it straight off the top of my head from something I saw in the paper.  

It’s a lovely piece, Marianne. Thanks for sharing it!

I love the image of the dog and the chicken. Did you draw inspiration from a real place? 🙂

Yes It started with a real place and I saw the terra cotta saucers weight the crepe myrtle blossoms floating in them and the chicken.  The marriage of the two women came from an article I read in the newspaper this morning.  The drawing was from thinking about what  and why we write.  It just all got mushed together in my brain and came out like that I guess. The dog killing the chickens is real too and I thought about how society might kill the two girls maybe because the chicken was in a lacy dress.  It was fun.  I haven’t actually written anything in a while.  I’ve been reading a lot though.  

that should say “with the crepe myrtle blossoms”. I don’t’ know what’s wrong with me and my proofreading today.  Embarrassing.  

Lovely.  And I have chickens, too.  I agree about the feet.  All week I’ve been taking them frozen watermelon and ice water to keep them going in this heat.  I guess I kind of love them.

I enjoyed the image of a ramshackle place where plants grow wild here and there and everywhere, reclaiming the broken objects. Also the chicken bride.

Thanks Missaralee. I posted it too quickly and am seeing errors all over the place. Oh well to late now.  

Marianne, great job. I could really envision this rustically beautiful scene. It was full of real life and redemption.

You do such a good job at describing the scenery Marianne. I got such a pretty picture in my head.

Thanks Anna 

The chicken with the reptilian feet of a dragon and yet the dog just lay in the sun and watched her for a while. Pure magic Marianne, as always!

Thank you Yvette Carol.  They do have really awful looking feet.  

I write for a lot of reasons but the biggest one I think is because I love to read, I love literature!

Joe… as serendipity would have it… I have just posted an item called “WHY WE READ”.   I found your piece and the comments valuable… and I’m going to copy the whole shebang into a file for future reference.  Cheers.

Last week I introduced myself as a writer. As the words left my mouth a little thrill shot down my spine and my heart skipped! I’ve never publicly called myself a writer before. 

I wondered why? Maybe until this point I hadn’t been sure that I was. Part of me was waiting for permission, but I’m not sure from whom. This day was different, I realized I didn’t need permission. It would be like asking for permission to identify myself as a woman or a brunet. 

I am a writer because I was born with something to say. Just ask my mother! Apparently before I was fully delivered my head emerged screaming! 

Whether I ever write a book that becomes a best seller, receive an award, or finally win a “Show Off” contest, I’m a writer. I was born to communicate, and to deny that would be to deny part of who I am. 

I am a writer.

My motivation shifts from year to year, season to season. At any given time there’s a mixture of each of the four reasons. I’ve been contemplating my motivation again recently as I finish up my novel and begin looking for an agent. 

Why do I write? Does the world really need another novel, another blog post, another e-book. Yes and no. The entire world may not need to hear what we need to say, but our sphere of influence does. Words of hope, words of healing, words of wisdom or challenge, words of joy, of meaning, of beauty, they are our gift to the hearts of those around us. Loved ones and strangers alike. Our hearts long to connect and words allow us to do just that. 

I write because I love to. I do see the world differently when it flows from my fingers. I write to find meaning, to add value. I’m embarrassed to say that once in a while I do write with the delusion of fame and recognition, but that’s truly the least satisfying. Mostly I write to be a part of transformation. I’m most gratified when the words I write resonate in the heart of a reader and we both grow into better people.

*** Great thought provoking post Joe. I agree, sometimes the amount of ‘competition’ is overwhelming. I’m incredibly grateful my writing isn’t required to feed my family and I have the freedom to just enjoy. 

Wow Beck, I really connected with the idea that “the entire world may not need to hear what we need to say, but our sphere of influence does.” It made me think of writing for the young women in my life, women I want to see floorish into confident, joyful chasers of passion! I will think of this from now on when I’m blocked and when I don’t feel I have anything new to say.

Whenever I think my voice doesn’t matter, or I will never be the next ____ (fill in the blank), I think of the women who have written to me or commented because a blog post has encouraged them. It helps to write for a smaller audience, if it translates into a larger one great, but a smaller, personal one is more compelling and manageable I think. Anyhow, I’m glad you connected with that idea! I’m sure there are women who are better because you share your words!

I love the idea of writing for your sphere of influence as well.  That whole paragraph is just brilliant.  Words allow us to connect to the ones we love…absolutely true.

Thank you Rachel! I think seeing our audience, regardless of how small, as worthy to receive the gift of our words is inspiring. 

Beck – You do indeed have something to say.  I find your writing unique and uplifting.  I don’t think you need to feel embarrassed to say you think sometimes of fame and recognition.  I think that just goes along with feeling that you are telling a truth that others need to hear or with wanting validation.  Either way I find it hard to believe that anyone who puts things into a public forum like this doesn’t want to be read by others (which kind of equals being published).  Why else would the post here? You are young and very lively and positive and you are very good with creating images.  I still remember a the person finding the letters in the attic that were written to a man other than her grandfather. That was a very memorable story. You will get there IMO. 

Thank you Marianne! I do want to be read. Joe once said without an audience a writer is just someone who journals. I don’t want success to be what compels me though. I find it tarnishes my creativity and compassion. 

I’m tickled that you remember the love story about the letters. I was just thinking about that story today and wondering if I could use it in my next novel!  I so appreciate your encouragement!

Hey Beck, I resonated with your entire post. I especially liked, “I do see the world differently when it flows from my fingers.” I feel the same way. I am able to express myself more thoughtfully and honestly as I write.  I also appreciated your admission (or is it admittance?) to sometimes writing for the fame and recognition. It is so true that this motivation is the least satisfying. I know that I use writing (and The Write Practice) to get feedback and attention when I’m feeling particularly insignificant.

Thanks for your comment Tom. I’ve found when I hold the golden cow of fame or acceptance up as my goal of writing the joy and even creativity are tarnished. My best writing comes when I’m honest and selfless, but that’s a hard place to stay. 

I thought the same thing about people laughing at me! I assumed I couldn’t say I’m a writer because they’ll ask me, “what have you written?” And I can’t say, a blog! But then I realized I spend more hours writing than doing just about anything, so what else would you call that?! Keep practicing and growing more comfortable with who you are as a writer and the easier it will be to embrace, and admit! At least that’s what I tell myself!

Congratulations on coming out of the literary closet Beck!! Stay out here in the sun girl 🙂 Well done.

Thanks Yvette!

I would like to see your blog. I liked this post.

Thanks Sandra. Here is a link to my original blog. I haven’t written in quite some time due to a broken computer, a new job, and my husbands loss of a job. But this blog is a good archive of some of the best of what I’ve written. http://beckfarfromhome.blogspot.com/?m=1

alright I will look at it. 🙂 Thanks.

Joe, this piece was exceptional. You made it into my Great Quotes file for the first time, not once but twice, with one post! Don’t you think, that it’s more like everyone has always secretly wanted to write (or nearly everyone). I know that throughout my life, whenever I’ve mentioned to someone — anyone — that I write, the reply has usually been a variation of ‘I’ve always wanted to write a book’. The only difference these days, is that the means to ‘publish’ one’s writing has come within easy reach. 

I’m so honored, Yvette. Thanks!

I definitely think it’s true that most people want to write, and it makes sense. We all want to be fully alive. We all want to be loved and respected, not just in our lifetimes but for forever. We all would like to make the world a better place. And if Victor Frankl is right (and I think he is), we all want to experience meaning. Everyone wants to write because those are four amazing things writing offers.

I’m reading Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning” right now. Great read. Great blog, btw, Joe!

Awesome, Tom. Isn’t he amazing?

“What is the meaning of all this?” came her voice from the other room. One of the kids was obviously in trouble, I could tell by the tone. I continued pecking away on my computer. I was in the midst of writing a pivotal scene for my novel when my wife poked her head inside the door of my office. “I said, what is the meaning of all this?”

I swiveled around in my chair and faced the doorway. “Oh, were you talking to me?” I asked.

“Um, yes! I want to know what’s the meaning of this right here!” She pointed her angry finger at an open page in a spiral notebook. It took her a moment as she moved the notebook back and forth like she was playing an invisible trombone.

“’I’m feeling lost and alone. I have no one to turn to and I feel I’m drowning,’” she read. “Did you write this?”

“Are you reading my journal?” I asked in a shocked and accusatory tone.

“Wait, that’s not all. ‘How can I ever be happy again with all this guilt and shame? Why did I ever agree to meet up with her?’” My wife shook my exposed journal in my face as if she was trying to empty it of the hurtful words and then placed her clinched hands on her hips. “Can you explain to me the meaning of all this?”

“I’m going to ask you the same question, sweetheart! Why the hell are you reading my journal? That is my own private writing and it’s none of you damn business!”

“None of my damn business? If you’re cheating on me, then it’s certainly my damn business!”

“Cheating on you? I’m not cheating on you!”

“Then who did you “meet up with?” She accompanied her snarky tone with air quotes.

I quickly grabbed my journal out of her fist and stormed out of the room. I grabbed my keys and headed toward the garage. I could hear her crying in the room where I left her. My face felt hot and the back of my neck felt chilled. Beads of sweat ran down my cheeks. Or was it tears? My stomach was gurgling acid and I could hear my heart pounding inside my ears. I grabbed a pen sitting on the counter on my way out and slammed the door behind me.

What was the meaning of all this?

I like the way this escalates so quickly, the way arguments do.  I like the description of her waving the notebook like a trombone.  I would like to know what happens. The dialogue is great here like it always is in your writing.  

The first line said so much! Well-chosen words can convey time, era, personality even class. Immediately I had an image of who this lady was 🙂

I like how you used that last sentence. Well done.

I originally wrote this on paper, so this is a little bit edited (not much though).  Also, I couldn’t stop at 15 minutes, so it’s pretty long…sorry about that.

Joan Didion said, “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means.  What I want and what I fear.”  I know where she’s coming from.  Blogging can be difficult for me because I start off intending to write about one thing and by the time I’m finished I find I wrote about something completely different.  I have an idea, but in the process of writing about it I discover other thoughts and feelings I never knew I had, but that I want to share and I follow those down the rabbit hole.

For most of my life, writing has been a mostly personal endeavor.  I’ve had a blog for eight years, but for most of that time the only people who read it were close friends and family and it was just random thoughts about what was going on in my life.  And even then, I always had a journal with me to capture things I didn’t want to post.  In fact, most of my writing is really just journalling – processing things I’ve seen and read and heard and been a part of.

As a child, I was a sporadic journaller (is that a word?  I guess it is now).  I read many books where people discovered old diaries and read them, so I had a very specific idea of what a journal should be – lots of particular details, dates, etc.  I tried to do that, but my childhood was essentially boring and I never really knew what to write.  I just did it because the characters I loved did it.

In high school, a friend of mine began creating notebooks.  They were vibrant colors and included song lyrics and pictures and funny stories, all done artistically in bright markers.  You never saw Kristen without her notebook.  I thought this was fantastic and started carrying my own notebooks.  I lacked Kristen’s artistic vision and talent, however, and tended to listen to the same songs over and over, which meant I had a hard time coming up with new song lyrics to doodle during class.  I kept these notebooks for a few years, but they were never really more than a way to keep from falling asleep during class.

And then for high school graduation I received a Moleskine notebook.  It was beautiful.  So clean and professional looking, not flowery or girly (I am neither and most of the journals I had been given were).  It was exactly the kind of notebook I pictured college students and great thinkers using (I was aided in this fantasy by Moleskine’s self-description in the back pocket, of course).  I was a great thinker, a philosopher, a collegian, and this was where I would record my brilliant life.

From that point forward, I have always had a Moleskine close by.  It feels a little pretentious sometimes, a little too hipstery, but it’s a habit now.  Some have lasted me a few months, some have taken me almost a year and a half to fill.  Just last week I began my ninth one, although I am writing this in a journal that was a gift from a friend.  It feels a bit like a betrayal.

And now I found that I’ve gone down the rabbit hole again and have given you the history of my notebook preferences instead of talking about why I write.  But looking back at it, I can see my motivations.

I guess I started writing because other people – both fictional and real – did.  And then because I wanted to look cool.  And then because I wanted to look cool and mysterious, as if always having a notebook with me would make people want to know more about me and ease the transition to college.

And now?  Now I think I write because I cannot imaging myself not writing.  Because I cannot deal with my emotions without it.  Because I do not know what I think if I do not put it into words.

And, if I’m honest, a little bit because I hope I look cool and mysterious over here, scribbling in my notebook.

I love your writing style. I find myself going on bunny trails all the time.

Thank you!  I’m working on getting my bunny trails to at least lead back to the main trail eventually.  I’m glad some people can follow my weird brain  🙂

Journaling is so important.  I didn’t start writing until I was almost forty (when I first got a word processor that would check spelling since I cannot spell) and I wish I had at least tried to get things down before then because I can’t remember them.  I like your Moleskin remark.  A good notebook needs to be filled. That’s a good reason to write too.  

Thanks Marianne!  And filling a good notebook is definitely a reason to write  🙂

I just started journaling, yesterday.  I love Joan Didion.  Her words could have been mine.

At the moment, my blog is mostly read by close friends.   Combined with journaling, I’m writing more than ever.  Over time, I want my writing to take on a life of its own.  “Because I do not know what I think if I do not put it into words.”  

That’s why I write.  To see who I am.

Thanks, Shelley!

i write because i have ideas. i have always had ideas but i never “knew” that i could write them down. i am like all those people you talk to; you know, the people who see you scribbling in your notebook, and ask “what are you doing?” and you say “writing” and then you have a conversation, and then they say, “i have ideas too, but (insert excuse).” yeah i used to be one of those people, but then i realized that i COULD. 

ok yeah i want to be famous too…. but if i , or any of my manuscripts, even get *accepted* then i will feel awesome because SOMEONE at least ONE PERSON will read what i have to say… hopefully i write well enough for them to see my point of view,  and maybe even change their own POV to what I think is the better version. yeah… pretty selfish reasons, eh? but… seriously? it’s like being a doctor. most people go into it to help people, but they want to be treated fairly in their compensation. it’s the same  thing, i think, at least. 

I think you’re right.  There are lots of reasons for doing things and lots of ways to be compensated.  Writing is a lot of effort to go to for nothing.   

Been a long time since I posted a practice. Hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I had fun writing the piece. 🙂

The number one rule was to never stop walking.

Snow rained down hard on us and the wind blew restlessly, it pierced through our thick clothing and into our skin and into our bones, sapping away what little strength we had left. But we continued on walking. To stop was death.

We shuffled along in a straight line with the captain leading the group. I was positioned in the middle. Home. That’s where we were all headed. But will we be able to reach home? We started out as twenty strong men, a week passed us by and only half remained. Two were taken by hunger, one succumbed to injury, and the rest fell into the wraiths’ hands.

They were there. Lurking at the edge of our senses. Never stop walking. To stop was death. To stop was to be with the wraiths. They were the faint voices whispering to you at the edge of your hearing. You could smell their scent with each passing of the winter wind. They smelled of death and decay. You could see them at the periphery of your vision. Sometimes they looked like a friend you have back home, other times they looked like one of our dead brethren, there were rare times when they looked like themselves—demons of the mountain.

I placed one foot forward, followed by the other one. Each step seemed to be my last, but I pushed on. I pushed on. Then I heard her voice. We all did. It was faint at first but it grew louder with each step I took.

“Keep moving! Do not look at them!” The captain shouted. We moved on.

She was calling me to come to her. She was calling me home. She was calling me to rest. I felt myself crying. My heart wanted to go to my wife but my mind knew it was a lie of the wraiths. I felt so tired. I just wanted to stop and for everything to be over. I closed my eyes.

“I’m sorry captain! It was an honor to fight alongside you.” I raised my voice loud enough to be heard over the howling of the wind.

“Keep on walking, boy!” The captain replied. “Your wife’s dead! It isn’t her!”

I stopped. The ones behind me passed me by, their faces hidden by thick hoods. I looked to my side and there she was. She smiled at me and beckoned me to come closer. I did. I grabbed her in my arms.

From some far off place, I heard someone shouting. Shouts of pain and agony mixed with the winter wind. He had the same voice as mine. He was shouting for help. He sounded like he was in some great pain. I didn’t bother looking who it was. I was home.

Very eerie. It shows how much we miss someone who’s already gone but still is more important than life itself.

Great JB.  The “faint voices whispering to you at the edge of your hearing”, the occasional glimpses of the wraiths in the peripheral vision.  Those are good images. It’s easier to imagine a tired man being called to his death by his wife than being called to fight some more obvious source of evil.  It’s pretty spooky and I got a very clear image even though you didn’t spend a whole lot of time on description.  I can see the line of men moving though the snow in a dimly lit landscape. 

Thanks Marianne! Glad I was able to project the scene I desire. 🙂

It’s pretty sweet the way you always write something different, with new tonalities and shades. A wide-ranging imagination you have there JB,

Thank you Yvette. I love to experiment with new stuff 🙂

This reads like a classic “Twilight Zone” episode. Just to be clear, I mean that as a compliment. I love that show.

Thanks! Wouldn’t take it as an insult. Don’t worry. It’s super amazing for you to liken my story to one of Rod Serling’s. Thank you Brian 🙂

You’re welcome!

I’ve to agree with Orwell. I think all of us, we do the things we do because we want to be remembered. Some do it by writing, some through their movies, some by painting. We all want to be remembered in one way or another.

What you posted today is true I believe in all writers. We write because we have to even if it just taking notes on something we read.

Some write for fame and money and to be remembered.

Others like myself write because I love to share what I read and also hope that I may help some find out facts and events that are going on around them.

Blogging is a way to write, having your writing in print. Some people are writers but maybe not writing a full book is there thing. But rather just a short story.

Writing is a way to preserve what is going on in our time period.

Penny squeezed her knees as tight as she could. The darkness in the cave didn’t scar her. It calmed her. Here she was alone. Here she could think. They would be looking for her soon. He would be looking for her soon.

Why did Lord Peter insist that he knew what was best for her? Did he not realize that her roots had been grown in Oppannivol? She had no need for all the finery of being a Lady. She’d rather stay a nurse maid.

She heard shouting. They were shouting her name. Should she answer? She wanted to.

Suddenly, she herd footsteps on the cave floor. They were coming toward her. The heavy breathing was defiantly a mans. She could sense the other person right in front of her. He sat down and let out a sigh.

“Well Penny, how long of a time do you need before I tell them where you are?”

“Go away Peter.”

He made a clicking noise with his tongue. “You ought to be more respectful to someone thirteen years your elder.”

“You ought to give a girl her own choice when it comes to where she lives.”

“No, not to a girl, but to a woman, yes.”

She let a moment pass by. “I hate it when you are right.”

“I this case, I hate it as well. I wish you were old enough to make the right choice, so I would not have to force it on you.”

I like the dialogue and I assume this is a WIP and that the characters would make more sense if I read the the whole thing. It seems like Penny is Peter’s ward or maybe he has kidnapped her and then some other bad people are looking for her too.  

I could almost feel the snow falling on me. 

Living fully and discovering meaning are the top two reasons I write.  I try to write everyday, even if it’s just one sentence (that maybe takes me 10 minutes to get just right).  But a lot of time writing for me is emotionally draining, and I have to stop (or maybe rest) for a little while to get the strength to keep on going.  Writing can be such a physical and psychological effort, but yet I can’t help myself.  Gotta write!

Bathsheba in a Hot Tub – Free Writing Exercise

I pretend I’m Bathsheba, stepping into my hot tub instead of an ancient pool, which I’m sure Bathsheba would have done if she’d had the chance.  The man who watches me, and I know he watches me, across the field in a house with a three-car garage, is my snake-hipped version of King David.

Tonight I’m wearing my pink kimono that hits me just above the knee and little silver kitten heels.  My husband Joey is watching Pawn Stars, and he’s talking back to the TV so loud I think he’s calling me.  But he’s not. He treats me the same way you do a lizard in a terrarium. He taps on the glass every once in a while to make sure I’m alive, and beyond that I’m pretty much on my own.

So this guy, my King David, is about all I have. I met him once, at TelStar Market in the meat department, when we both reached for a chuck roast. He let me have it, which says a lot, I think, about his character.

I could have gotten his name then, but I wasn’t able to utter a word. He was wearing Levis, the real deal Levis – Joey wears Wranglers – and this T-shirt that read, Just Listen, which I found to be both mysterious and a little profound.

At night, King David sits on his deck, alone.  He looks toward my house, which Joey lights up like a carnival, so I know he can see me.

At first I watched from my kitchen window. And then six weeks ago and joined a gym where they teach classes that will either kill you or make you look like a movie star.  I haven’t been mistaken for Scarlett Johansen yet, but my jeans are saggy in the butt, so there’s still hope.  Anyway, since I’m looking better, I go out on the patio, take a glass of wine and sit in the porch swing every night about nine o’clock.

Joey’s in bed by nine-thirty and snoring by a quarter til.  And I’m left alone under the stars, so close to King David that I can feel his power.

Tonight I set down my wine and pull the cover off the hot tub.  Warning: there’s no sexy way to do this.  And then I climb the three steps real slow, kick off my heels, right foot, left foot, and drop the kimono.  I have on a swimsuit, although it’s tan, so I hope from this distance I look like I’m in my altogether, and I step into the hot tub that gurgles like a brook.

I am sinning, I can tell you that much, not in any fleshly way.  But sinning nonetheless.  And you know how it feels?  It feels like that moment just before the big-haired girl reads the lottery numbers on Channel 8. That moment when your life might turn, and you might be able to quit dying your own hair and put your mama in a better home and fly to Vegas first class.

I drop into the water, chest deep. My hair is up, a whip of a pony tail that I flip over the edge of the hot tub.  I can feel my cheeks, hot as August, and my heart is racing.  I look up toward King David’s house and he’s standing now, the long line of his body seems to glow from the porch light behind him.  I stand up too, and water races down my chest. We stand like this, half than a quarter mile apart, my King David and I, for what seems forever but can’t be more than two minutes, and in that time I know we’ve struck a deal.

He raises his hand to me, and I lift mine to him.  A cloud shifts across the half moon.  King David turns his porch light on and off, on and off, a signal, I think, for me to run to him. I step out of the tub and into my kimono, in the whispering space between fidelity and desire.

Bathsheba, I think, how much did you know of love and fate? How much did your husband care?

Oooh, I like it! This is great fiction, I would love to read a little novella continuation of this style…

Thank you so much Missaralee.  I may just try that.

Great exercise for personal application! I used teach my students to do similar exercises.  You’ve given new light on an age old problem many of married couples experience, and that everything is a choice.  Great job!

Thanks ShelleyD!  It was fun to write.

“Hey: We need to talk.”

Jared’s dad dropped the box onto the kitchen table.

“What are you doing with that?” Jared went to grab it back. Dad placed his hands on it so it wasn’t going anywhere.

“So you just went into my room and took that? You do that often?”

“You know what, Jared? No, I don’t. But honestly–it’s my house, and I CAN do it whenever I want. If you don’t like that, well, I’m sorry. So, you want to tell me about what’s in there?”

“Why? You already know what it is.”

“I just want to know how you got started with this. Was it your friends? Was it Will? I don’t like that kid, by the way.”

“God, Dad, it wasn’t Will! And it wasn’t Steve, it wasn’t Joel, it wasn’t Amanda…any other friends of mine you hate you want to blame this on?”

“Jared, I–”

“WHAT? You WHAT, Dad? You’re just looking out for me? Or, or, what–you just want to be a ‘cool Dad’ and say, “Hey, no problem, do whatever you want, just be safe about it.’ What Dad? What words of wisdom do you have for me?”

“I just…I saw what you did, and…I liked it. I don’t understand why it’s such a huge secret. I mean, in a cigar box under the bed?”

“I don’t know, it’s personal, and…you like it?”

“Yeah, I used to do it myself, back in the day. But then, I don’t know, I got a job, and…I don’t know. Yeah, I like it.”

Dad loosened his grip on the box. Jared slid it towards himself and opened the lid.

“So…what part did you like?”

“I like the antagonist. You can never go wrong with a good bad guy.”

Jared took his composition book out of the box.

“I mean, I noticed some stuff: Minor things, like some subject-verb agreement stuff, but–”

“Well, it’s not finished, it’s not even a first draft. That’s why I wasn’t sharing it.”

“No, that’s fine. What I’m trying to say is, if you need an editor…”

“Oh.” Jared looked at the book, then looked at his dad. “Thanks.”

“No problem. Oh, and here’s a quick tip: If you’re hiding something from us, maybe you don’t want to put it in a cigar box.”

Jared laughed.

“I’m just saying: What was the thought process there? ‘I don’t want mom or dad to find this, so I’ll hide it in here. That way, they’ll think I’m just smoking Dutch Masters in my room and they won’t think anything of it’?”

“Shut up…” Jared and Dad laughed. Dad put his arm around him and Jared took his book and the box back upstairs. It was almost writing time.

Oh man did I ever get a good laugh over the cigar box hiding place! I love this piece for so many reasons.

Thank you very much! I used to keep Matchbox cars in a Dutch Masters box when I was little. The worst part about it was having to smoke all those cigars in order to have an empty box for my cars. Just kidding–I don’t know where that box came from and it just struck me as being a weird thing for a kid to have.

Loved this piece, I used to have those cigar boxes to put all sorts of secret stuff as well. Think they came from my grand dad. They were the perfect size and depth for the many thing I treasured. And decorating them was the best part.

Wow, I love this.  So funny and great.

Ha!  Two entries today in which journals had been read without permission.  That was funny though.  You were really leading us on.  Thanks!

I know, right? Right after I posted my piece, I scrolled through the others and read them. As soon as I started reading Tom’s I was like “Well, what do you know about that?” I loved his take on the “someone reading another’s journal” idea…and was relieved mine didn’t turn out to be a rip-off of his!

Thanks! I appreciate it.

Oh, the fine line between snooping and caring.  Your dialogue is so natural.  The characters fall so naturally into place.  Good teaching material for newbies like myself.

Thank you! It’s good to know all the talking to myself that I do pays off.

Fantastic, though I can’t get the old commercial out of my head: “From you, OK? I learned it by watching you!”

HA! That commercial’s a classic. And seeing as how they make movies based on board games and theme park rides, someone should make a big-budget feature-length movie based on this commercial. I’m thinking Zac Efron as Distraught Kid and George Clooney as Hypocrite Dad.

Putting the writing in the cigar box was funny.

I had to go back to the beginning to make sure it works. Because, you know, on first reading it leads to assuming it’s another anti-drugs public announcement ad. Does that make me a born editor?

this was so awesome!

I suppose I write for self-discovery and for the journey.  I feel that I can express myself better in writing than I do verbally.  I hope to hear words of encouragement because of my writing.  Something to the effect of “I really like what you’ve written, or that made me think, or that’s exactly what I’ve been going through.”  Knowing I’ve connected with someone on a personal level is encouraging to me. 

Yesterday, I read a post about journaling by Michael Hyatt.  He shared a journaling app that I just had to try.  This is my 15 minute journaling entry from this morning.

ON EXERCISE

The morning is almost over. Sadie got her run and I got mine, two miles in fact. That made me proud. It was quite an accomplishment. Had it been a bit earlier while the air was still cool, I might have done three. In any case, I can see my ability improving.

While I was running, I thought about my body. “They say” you should think about how your body works when you exercise. I try to focus on my breathing first. Breath in through my nose and out through my mouth in short puffs. I’ve got that down pretty well. Next, I try and focus on my abdomen. Taking big breaths into my lungs and forcing out slowly from my diaphragm.

All I can think of is an article I read years ago about what happens when our lungs age. Like any other muscle, it becomes less effective. It looses its elasticity and become brittle. It’s important to keep our lungs in good working order by taking in deep breaths and getting the oxygen generating through our bodies and to our brains. Jogging does this for me.

My knees are in pretty good shape. My left one has a little bit of twinge inside the knee cap. I tend to think it’s because my quads aren’t strong enough. Maybe by the end of the summer, I’ll sign up at the fitness center (again). I could run every other day and do leg lifts on the alternate days. The outer part of my right leg gives me a little problem. It might be from my broken leg I experienced two years ago. That atrophied quite a bit. I’m sure, overtime, the muscle will build back up.

Which brings me to my feet. DH says I throw my right foot in really bad. I don’t think I was ever aware of that before. Could that also be a result of my break? I tried to lengthen my stride rather than speed up my pace (or, are they the same?). It was obvious, I wasn’t ready for that. I’ll just take each morning as it comes and do the best I can for that time.

I’m so glad I started. It gives me that time to think about my writing and reflect on what I’ve accomplished so far.

(I posted this earlier today, but it didn’t show up in the comments section.  Not sure why.)

“I feel that I can express myself better in writing than I do verbally.”

Definitely. I know that’s true for me.

I’m glad I’m not alone on the verbal issue.  I find that I hold back and end up feeling inadequate or just saying nothing at all.

A lot of people say they get inspired while walking or running.  Your writing is clear and kept me running along with you.  

Thank you, Marianne.  

My gosh, I was right there with you.  I love the way your thoughts skitter. Beautiful.

Thank you, Marla.  Skitter.  I like that.

So, I’m the only one writing solely to achieve world domination and crazy mad cash? No one else? No?

For real, though, I write to get noticed, I’ll admit that. My creative abilities are one of the weapons in my arsenal that make me stand out. Lord knows it’s not rugged good looks, lots of money, or athletic ability.

But I write to discover meaning and “change the world”, too. It means the world to me when someone likes or gets something from what I’ve written, not just for the ego boost, but because I feel like I’ve contributed to the dialogue. I’m participating, not just standing by.

Love your honesty!

Thanks! I try to keep it real.

I guess I must agree with Victor Frankl, I write to express what thought are current and hope to draw in those who may be in the same place or have been there for one reason or another. Just last night, i found myself lost in dark place and I knew I had to get it out. The only way I knew to do this was to simply write it down and share it, in hopes that someone would get it, as I reached out, unashamed of what I was feeling, I needed to reveal the darkness that has been twisting me inside and out. I wrote “standing in the mirror, not looking ahead, no desire to see who it is, only wishing to vanish within the dust in the air. always afraid of the monster that lies in waiting, feeding off of the guilt and voices from within, ushering in the chilling thoughts of failure and overloaded burdens that are just too much. loneliness takes its victim to the slaughter as the passion for life is smothered by the silence in the dark. is there a home for the lonely? will God embrace failure? will anyone notice the void? my thoughts carry on, like the silent jagged edged blade of a slow and painfully hidden cry in the abyss. my flesh weakens with time, my ghost wanders, searching for a home as the angels weep”. mlhatcher.blogspot.com

I’m addicted to language, the way words strung together by ordinary people telling everyday stories can turn into poetry.  In the car I listen to talk instead of music: NPR, Canadian Radio, BBC.  In interviews you can hear a cadence sometimes, a rhythm that thrums through the airwaves and surrounds you. 

Once, at one of my best friend’s father’s funeral, I slipped a pencil out and took notes on the program – I’m not really proud of this – because he’d been a Mason, and these country men, their Southern accents heavy, recited the service they’d been taught, an oral history passed down generation after generation.  It’s not supposed to written down.  One of the men, dressed in white gloves too small, and a Mason’s white apron, called on the “Great Pontificator,” and my heart soared.

And once, while interviewing a man who woke from a fitful sleep to the knowledge he’d been called to perserve one of Arkansas’ oldest cemeteries, said this when I ask him why he loved the place. “Look around,” he said.  The pines there were so tall they blocked the sun and the monuments were mostly statues: angels, obelisks, and a few markers that were only sandstone, heavy pieces of rock without any markings.  “Look,” he said.  “We’re standing in a piece of time frozen.”  And then he pointed with his cigarette, “And my mother’s buried over there next to the Confederates.  I bring flowers every week.”

Just this past weekend, I found this in the personal ads of our local paper.  It’s GOT to be a story.  “LOOKING for a slim sexy blond lady to have an intimate relationship without sex. A lady that likes guns, no smoker or drinker. Lady between 25-30. Christian a must. Hey Girls’s can you bait a hook, cause I’m quite a catch.”

It’s everywhere, this music we call language, and in the South you still hear the great old sayings like, “I’m busier than a one-legged rooster in a two-story hen house.”  I am blessed beyond measure. I just wish I could write faster.

Hearing the cadence in language is precisely how I see it, as well.  When I was learning Japanese, sometimes I would just sit and let it wash over me without making an effort to grab every phrase and word.  You could hear the music within.  It was beautiful.

A few years ago someone told me “Don’t ever stop writing, Suzie” I laughed it off. Truth is I can’t stop writing, some of it is dire, some passable, hopefully one day it will be more than that. Practice, practice, practice.

Twenty five roller-coaster years, how do we celebrate that, honey?” “I dunno babe, maybe a trip, do we have any tokens?”

“Let me check. Wouldn’t you think we’d be above coupon clipping after all this time,” Jenny spoke as she rifled through the coupon drawer.

“Hey, don’t start with me! You know why I never took the promotions, I didn’t plan on any of the stuff that’s happened,” Phil countered becoming more defensive with each word.

“Honey, cool it, it was just a throw-away. I didn’t mean to hurt you. You’re right, and Philip Solomon, I would not change one thing about our life. Imagine if we wrote it down sometime?”

“Aha, that would be like ‘War and Peace’, there’s our two families for starters, then the kids. Nothing prepared us for having children with disabilities. We could write a book for each child and a three volume treatise on your mother!”

“Phil, don’t be mean, I have been healed of my past, I might still have the physical scars but the emotional ones are gone. What about a tv series like ‘Shameless’ for your siblings,”

“Ha, ha, ha, oh Jennifer Lynn Solomon you are going to be ticked some for that, C’m here!”

The two, should know betters, fooled around, jumping over the sofa and chairs, chasing each other whilst laughing at each other acting like newly weds instead of approaching fifty.

To be better understood, and to understand ourselves better.

I am, by profession, a writer.

Laypeople, hearing this, tend to think I write novels. I imagine they reach back to their memories of The Shining or Misery (strange how many novels King wrote about writers) and try to pigeon me into that authorial hole. 

Some even seem disappointed at my appearance. I’m not dishevelled or wild-eyed. I only drink whiskey when I’m trying to impress someone. I don’t even own a typewriter; a device that, at least in the Bay Area, seems deemed more essential to poetic credibility than the ability to write.

But I’m not a writer writer. I’m a copywriter.

And when I think about my motivations—why I spend agonizing hours aligning word to word, why I measure time by campaigns and fire sales—the first thing that comes to mind is money.

And I wonder… When did it stop being about creating something meaningful? And how do you find your voice—your true voice—when you’ve spent a lifetime speaking for others?

I have a friend who is a copywriter.  I’m amazed at the way he thinks.  I know what you do is hard work.  It takes a certain type of person to be successful in this area.  I admire good copywriters.

Mmm… I felt this. 

Can you have both? Can you make copywriting an art?

This is a great post!  I definitely write for all four of those reasons.  The one that stood out to me the most was the fourth.  Writing to find meaning!  That is usually where I live.  I write to understand and find meaning in life. Writing allows me some control over the things that are beyond my control.

Aspie Writer http://www.aspiewriter.blogspot.com

Why I Write: Because I feel a release with each word. Because once you put to words to paper they stop pounding around your chest like a ping pong ball. Because I want to know which stories are important. Because maybe other people won’t make the same mistakes I did. Because I stutter. Because I can never find the right words when I say it out loud. Because some words are too heavy for the air, they need something solid to rest on. Because nothing I write is ever incorrect. Because my experiences and opinions can’t just disappear when I die. Because a piece of paper will always listen. Because emotions crawl out with the words down my neck, across my arms, and out of my fingers. Because “I love you” sounds cheap when you say it outloud. Because I want to make other people laugh. Because I want to capture something. Because my sisters and I always made stories growing up, but none of us wrote them down. 

Joe- I find your site to be like an expensive department store window, I don’t pass it often, but every once in a while I make a point to detour and drool through the windows.  So I find it odd that today while browsing I came across this particular entry.  And it just so happens that this was my focus this week.  This week I discovered that I write because it is the only way to find sanity and reason in the mess that I call my head.  And so that was my blog theme this week- a small exercise I attempt weekly (www.scissortailsongs.blogspot.com).  Thanks for your faithful entries.

Hello, I have always written stories from the young age of 14. I am now a senior lady writing a novel that takes place in the year of 1946: there is a time warp within my novel that brings the reader to the present year of 2012. Many twists and turn. I am just about half way through and loving every minute. Noel 

I personally write for several reasons. I write to release,I write to clear my mind and to share my thoughts with the world…I could go on and on but I write for a lot of reasons. This article os extremely true and even thought he didn’t hit every single reason,he did make an excellent point. Good Job!!!!! ^_^

Good answer, Joe. I was just pondering this question and googled it. It has become for me like exercise. If I don’t do it for a few days, I get cranky. I want to make a mark, change the world. Perhaps there is more inside me that wants to come out and be heard. Perhaps there is a message that people need to hear. I’ll never know unless I speak and write it out. Maybe I don’t have to understand. Maybe like Nike says “Just do it!”

I’m actually writing 400-500 word short stories every fifteen minutes. I literally cannot stop writing, and it’s so much fun! I have, ever since I was eleven, wanted to write for a living. Writing is liberating, and knowing full-well that I can create a world all of my own is wonderful. Don’t you guys think the same about writing?

I am not a writer.But i have this story that people need to read.And it has to be a real good story before they will put it in the papers.I would do it but myself but my spelling isn’t to good and i wouldn’t know how to start a story

I write to get the stories out of my head and make room for new ones to form. I write to share my love of writing with others, helping them to become better writers and (hopefully) write to support themselves.

Totally, Angie. 🙂

It didn’t always open. Some nights the clock would strike twelve and no door would blossom out of the southwest corner of her living room.

But tonight it did. And Maura tucked the beginning rows of her crochet project into a purple project bag, grabbed the plum fleece hoodie off the back of her favorite chair, slipped into her well-worn flats, and walked through the open door.

Sometimes the door opened to a hospital room, sometimes into a stranger’s home, and sometimes to the space underneath a bridge. Maura had no way of knowing where in the world the door would take her, but one thing she knew to expect. In every place she found someone who was dying alone — who had either minutes or a few hours left of life. And she stayed with her host until the end, no matter what he said to her, and no matter where his soul seemed to be headed.

Sometimes they exchanged words. Sometimes Maura would remain close, praying silently as her host faded by the minute. She trusted that everything counted, that in the space between conscious life and death the soul’s encounter with its Creator would be influenced by her small presence and her quiet prayers. Sometimes there was little else to do.

And sometimes her host wanted nothing to do with her.

Through long minutes with poisonous words, the last rebellious ventings of a tortured soul at the brink of oblivion, Maura stayed and waited, holding her tongue if she had nothing to say, or if the words that came to mind would have only added to her host’s bitterness.

These encounters changed Maura as much as they did those whom she attended. Her mother noticed it, as did her brother and sister and her co-workers at the library.

So did a particular patron of the library: a gorgeous, if slightly unkempt, forty-something college professor who always seemed happy to see her.

The only one who didn’t remark on the changes was a man who sometimes visited the same places she did on the other side of the door. He lived on the other side of the world, but a door opened in his home, too, though not at the same hour, and sometimes he found Maura already there with their host. Sometimes, not.

At first, it was awkward finding someone else there with the one dying. Maura didn’t feel as free to either speak or to silently pray with one hand resting on the shoulder of her host. Nick (Nicolai ____) felt similarly inhibited, though less so.

They soon grew accustomed to each other, though. Nick found himself hoping Maura would be there. Maura was more changeable. Sometimes she hoped he wasn’t there, but some nights she actually prayed he would be.

Wow, this is so good Sarah. So imaginative. I’m fascinated and wondering where this all leads!

Thanks, Joe! It’s taking shape as I work on it. Your response to the beginning encourages me. Have a great day and weekend! 🙂

That is such a great question, every time I get frustrated with a writing project and stop I ask myself why do this, why am I compelled to write… The other day as I was working on the rough draft of my next book, it came to me- I’m an artist. My writing long hand and making the strokes with my pen or pencil to create words is like an artists brush strokes which will create a picture. Writing is rhythmic,when my fingers glide over the keyboard it’s like a dancers graceful moves on the dance floor…. To be alive is to be creative and to be creative is to be me.

Yeah! Love this. Thanks Debra.

I guess mine falls under, “to feel alive.” This isn’t grammatically correct, but my brain always thinks: I CAN’T NOT WRITE. It’s whom I am. Thanks for sharing, Joe.

I can relate to that. Thanks Marcy!

Not a ‘writer’ but do write casually and recently did a post, at a new site, on this same subject, with several different reasons – http://www.shouldyouwrite.com/four-reasons-why-we-write/ Thanks for what you do…

You’ve touched on some hotspots there, Sir.

I think you pulled it off right here: “We write to be fully alive. Writing draws us into the moment. We see the blades of grass, hear the miniscule chirp of the morning cricket, watch the shade travel from one edge of the yard to the other, seemingly for the first time.”

Powerful stuff. Thanks, Mr. Joe.

Good one there it is true..that if a man doesn’t read (write)he dies so many deaths before they actually die.

Why I write I search for “significance”. I find it and I have the urgent need to share it. I want other people to be touched as much as I am.

I am sitting infront of a window seeing the most amazing landscapes, action and moments. Through my window I see time and many other things unseen.

My inner eyes look, search and look again until I find that which moves me, hoping it will move you too.

why do people write let me know guys

The Night You Died

The night you died A part of me went with you The night you died My heart sank into my stomach The night you died My world collapsed The night you died My life fell apart The night you died I lost my best friend The night you died I lost my hero The night you died I lost my father

I wrote because my children did not believe that no other white girl had grown up as a “Slave Girl” as I did. I never learned anythng that young girls should know. Plantation live was fun for me with nothing but 7 older brothers to play with as a three year old. Later, it was demanded, because I was good at it all. There were 70 to 80 hired hands on the plantation. I did it all. Did I learn to cook, sew, bring books home from school or read for fun? NO!

Raised in a culture that seemed as though the depression was never over, I clawed my way out of the darkness of naivete to find and experience a world I had never known. Writting this was harder than anything I ever did after going through seven years of college.

They made me do it! “They Called Me Jo: A White Slave Girl” By: Jacqi Fromauex

I love freewriting. I did the exercise yesterday morning and I think it’s one of my better posts of late.

You can find it published here: http://www.justinwheeler.net/what-to-write-about-when-you-dont-know-what-to-write-about/

It’s the second time I have done this exercise in my latest attempt in becoming a daily blogger. 16 days and counting so far!

we write to make our own little changer in the world. To make a name for our self to show the world what we want them to see. My parents always told me that if I ever wanted to make a change in the world we had to start some where. And if we didn’t like something and we did not try and changer it that we had no room to criticize about it.

I write because it makes me feel like I have a purpose. On my worst days, I feel absolutely terrible about myself. I try to channel that into my writing, this feeling of having no power and no hope. After a while, when I read back of what I’ve written, it makes me smile. Even on my worst days, I can dive into my imagination and create something beautiful.

I write not ’cause I can I write ’cause I must Every day I skip Seems a total bust.

I write because I hear Rolling syllables in my head Which I must capture Lest they go dead.

I write to entertain To pull forth a laughter Or to paint a picture To sustain peace after.

I write to show the me That otherwise I hide To open up the depths That lay on the inside.

Lastly I write To pull the strings of your mind Hoping to give a perspective You otherwise might not find.

Three years later, this is still as true as every.

I write because it helps with my depression. I can find some normality out of something that feels crazy and scary.

‘Write your Memoir: The Soul Work of Telling your Story by Allan G. Hunter.

I never knew why I wanted to write. Years ago I read a great book by an English lady writer who’s name I only remember as Marion. A quote from her book was, ‘write if you must’.

I’ve gathered from that, she meant something along the lines of, ‘you are in for a rough trot, fella!’ And it has been. However, I’m finding that the more I get into it and do my journal work, my practice work, all the ‘yadder-yadder-yadder’ that sounds like two marbles rattling round in a tin, seems to get knocked into a little bit more tolerable thinking processes. It also irons out a bit of stress also.

It appears that the desire to create is much stronger in some compared with others. And I think that actually has to be addressed; inasmuch as it needs to be qualified just why one wants to write. If there is no definite purpose writing, then, ‘you are in for a rough trot, fella!’

A young boy’s father had an apple orchard and he worked there during his school holidays. One day the foreman got the boy to assist in the irrigation of the trees.

The gate of the channel was opened and the water flowed in the general direction to where the boy stood. However, the water began to go all over the place and he was in a quandary as to what to do. The foreman came over and took the shovel out of the boy’s hands, and, with a few swift strokes of the shovel made a channel that sent the water in the required direction.

The foreman said, “If you want the water to stay on course; you’ve got to have somewhere for it to go.”

Right now unfortunately my writing has stalled and I dont know why… when I cant or dont write I find myself angry and mad about everything…. yet when i do write I am right with the world. it really doesnt make sense. I feel like I’m stuck in quick sand that wont pull me under or spit me back out to dry land. And I’ve tried other things like volunteering, coloring painting , and nothing is working… Suck a frustrating time.

I never know what to write about! I truly love writing and I want to improve it but I let anxiety hold me back. The fear of being bad at something I love doing. The fear of people thinking I am weird. The fear to make mistakes. I recently got contacted by someone on tumblr who asked me to write for their website. I literally waited for weeks to write them and email. Just because I was scared. Yes, I am only 15. Yes, I don’t have any experience. Yes, English isn’t my first language. But does that mean that I shouldn’t take the opportunity to improve and learn? No, I shouldn’t. I wrote them an email 5 minutes ago and I sat looking at my screen for 20 minutes doubting if I should send the mail. I did but I doubted for a long time. I always find myself writing when I am either hurt, broken or empty. When things go better a couple months ago I just stopped writing. I think I wrote 4 pages in the past 4 months. That’s bad. I have to keep practicing and learning. Improving my writing style, broaden my vocabulary. But I don’t, it’s like I’d rather feel lazy and like a failure because I don’t writing anymore. Every time I have to write an essay for school I am reminded of my love for language and words. I love to just ramble on for hours. I love to write silly things, bad poems, stupid teenage crap. I remember how great I feel after I put down the pen. How great I feel when I find something good between all the crap I’ve written. I’d love to be a writer someday and I hope I one day will finally do what I love all day long. I’d love to learn to write about my happiness, about the way I fall in love with little things every day. I don’t want to keep describing my empty chest and the struggle of getting back up because that’s not my life. I can be very happy and I can be very sad. I should learn to appreciate both of them. Learn to express myself in more ways and to keep practicing. I hope the website gives me a chance to improve, learn and get to know myself more.

Behind the Eyes of Gustaf

As I now look back, I realize that I had been a ready victim, but little did I realize it at the time, for after all it was spring, a time so unlike any other time of the year–a time that held promise of budding things to come. It had held promise for me as well. But like most promises, not all were meant to be fulfilled. Had I only known.

I shall never forget that spring day when I first met Gustaf. He was sitting on a wooden bench that appeared terribly uncomfortable; yet, he didn’t seem to mind, as he’d continued to laugh and talk with those young men who had gathered around him, and who had seemed to hang onto his every word.

He looked up just as I had cleared the very last stair. Our eyes met, and we each had the strangest expression on our faces.

Oddly enough, it was an expression that we had previously met, that we had been close friends, and that we had been reunited at long last, which struck me as rather odd, as I had never before met this man, for if I had, surely, I would have recalled.

As I stood staring and thinking, a most peculiar feeling began to surge within me, and recognizing it for what it was I blushed, caught my breath, and tried desperately to still my fast-beating heart. For I knew immediately what had caused me to feel so peculiar. In the strangest sort of way, I was simply drawn to this man.

I felt emotionally nude, as I stood there before him, while noticing his full smile at my obvious discomfiture. For under his penetrating gaze, I felt a sense of powerlessness, intrigue, and danger. But these were but a few of the things I was to feel and experience under his sell, as his masculine charm was indeed overwhelming.

Suddenly, I felt myself walking toward him, and just as suddenly I stopped. For although he’d said nothing to dissuade me, I felt that he had, as I was positive he’d said no, not now, later.

To be sure I had understood, I searched his face for confirmation. But there was none, except for the smile that had given way to a frown of annoyance which mean I had been dismissed.

Ever confused, I lowered my eyes as though I’d been chastised. I turned and walked reluctantly away, but ever determined to meet tis fascinating man again, a man who’d said so much, but who had actually said nothing.

In the strangest sense, Gustaf didn’t seem to belong to the world. Rather, the world seemed to belong to him, and oddly enough this was one of the most interesting aspects about him.

I sensed, too, that he’d never actually loved, but had been loved, which really didn’t seem to matter, as I doubted he was aware of this obvious flaw, since he seemed on a different plane, from a different time, if such a thing were possible.

Everything about him had attracted my attention. But at first, it was his voice and his laughter, which were so distinct, so different from anything I’d heard before, as there was gaiety for certain in his seemingly ever-deepening voice. But there was also an unmistakable tone of seriousness that I found quite interesting and most disturbing.

Gustaf didn’t seem to care about anything or anyone, which made him that much more desirable, and because of this he seemed terribly lonely, spent, and even somewhat distant.

There was also a discernible, ascetic quality about him–a detachment. For he seemed a traveler, never staying too long in any place, never establishing firm roots. I sensed, too, that he needed me most desperately, and because I had always needed someone it was ever refreshing to find someone who was in need of me.

His hair was closely cropped–neatly trimmed–and his skin appeared tanned. But it was his eyes that had been most arresting, as they’d seemed to hold some type of mystery, a genius untapped, a knowledge to impart. He seemed a teacher, but at the same time a student.

It was true Gustaf was strangely handsome, but there was an unsettling melancholy about his features which had immediately interested me, although this was not so apparent as it was to become later. For indeed, it was everything about him that was alluring, but at the same time contradictory. And it was this, I think, that made him unique, if not dangerous.

Readily, I admit Gustaf excited me and, at the same time, terrified me. I was to realize, however, that he held me firmly in an ever-tightening grip. But I wouldn’t have had it any other way, even though I had sensed the presence of evil in his company.

And although the encounter had been brief, I knew within my heart that he and I were destined to be together, but in what capacity I dared not guess, for this was to be in spite of my better judgment and my being overly pragmatic, because just this once I was to follow my foolish heart.

So it was. Whenever I think of spring, I’m ever reminded of Gustaf, and strangely enough, as spring comes and goes, so it was to be with him, for he suddenly came into my life, and he just as suddenly departed.

But unlike spring, however, Gustaf was not to return, at least, not as I had come to know him.

I came here for lesson ideas for my 10th and 11th grade English classroom. I have loved writing all of my life and wish to pass that love on to others, but there are some that just don’t “get” it. There is a divine spark in some that are able to express themselves through writing, just as everyone has a spark for different things. For those students for whom writing isn’t their “thing,” I can offer them at best a formulaic approach to writing. It will get the job done. They will pass the test, and they will be able to present themselves intelligently to the world. I miss being a student, though. I miss the search for approval from my English teachers and the accolades I would receive on my papers. Writing for me was a very rewarding experience. I understand that not everyone has that experience, though, and so I try to encourage each student in their own way. “Search for the good,” they say. You will usually find whatever it is you are looking for. I miss writing, though. These days it seems I spent much more time reading other people’s (usually horrible) writing than getting to write on my own. I hope that I am not losing my gift. I hope that I am not becoming hardened with time. Writing is an art, it is not a science. Therefore, when an inexperienced writer takes some tip or “rule” that was meant to help in an inappropriate way, they become confused when I tell them that it does not work in this case. There are nuances to language; not all language rules are set in stone. I would like to write a book, eventually. Problem is that I don’t know what to write about! Sounds silly, but it’s true. When I took a creative writing course in high school I could write about anything, as long as I was given a prompt or topic. Now that I am an adult and on my own, the possibilities drag on like an infinite horizon in front of me. There are no paths carved out; I am all lost and alone in the magnitude of it all. My motivation for writing is to make my voice heard in the din, but to also speak for those who have no voice. I am a very observant person and would like to think that I can feel what other’s are feeling. I believe that the best writing builds empathy for others in its readers. I would like to write a book called “What It Means to be Human” about how easy it is to fail in this world. Perhaps it would be a tragedy, since the purpose of great tragedies is to build sympathy for the protagonist, but I do not think I could kill anybody off. I would want my hero to succeed in the end. The idea of being sympathetic for those who fail is an idea that is completely lost in our current society. We are told from a young age that success comes from hard work. But what is success? And what is hard work? I am sure the waitress working sub minimum wage works her tail off, but is she considered successful? Yes, I know… for every success story there is a “picking yourself up by your bootstraps” story of one’s rise from poverty to greatness. However, there are a great many other factors in these stories than simply hard work. One could spend their entire lives putting their nose to the grindstone, but if they have to purpose of goal, it will be wasted energy. So much of success is knowing the right people and being in the right place at the right time that it is impossible to simplify it down to simply hard work. That is what privileged people say to make you believe that they earned their privilege.

I want to write to make my audience feel something. I want to write something beautiful that will make my readers pause and feel like it is wonderful to be alive. I have felt this way about other works that I have read, works that opened my mind to the possibilities of our universe, such as Madeline L’Engle as a child, and I have felt this way upon reading the perfect explanation of a human emotion, such as Kate Chopin just this past summer. There are forevers in our feeble forms, eternities in our mortality. I wish to explore the unending depths of existence.

I want to write to be remembered and to leave a legacy for family and friends.

I´M GIVING A WRITING COURSE AND I´M SHOWING THIS WEBSITE TO MY STUDENTS. THEY ARE HAPPY TO READ YOU. THEY WERE ASKED TO START WRITING IN A BLOG. NEXT WEEK, THERE ARE HOLIDAYS IN MEXICO AND THEY´LL START DOING IT.

I AM HAPPY TO HAVE FOUND YOUR SITE.

GREETINGS FROM MEXICO CITY.

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I always live in some story of my own creation. I have been thinking to write a book. But, I feel low that whether I can. I fail to articulate the feel that I experience in thoughts into words or texts. Please, try to suggest me. Thank you.

Yeah, I really like this article. I write to make a name of myself.

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Why do we laud and honor some writers? Why do we consider their writings so great? We quote, and quote, and quote. What makes those writers so noteworthy, or should I say quote-worthy? I read an article that quotes some famous person, and wonder why that person is given such credence. What makes their thoughts so great? Why is their opinion any better than an opposing opinion? Maybe we quote someone just to back up our opinion. I am of the opinion that all writings are opinion. Even the Bible is opinion. It’s God’s opinion, so I value it more than any other. Perhaps that’s the answer! Who’s opinion do you value? I value opinion that rings true. “Prove all things. Hold fast that which is true.”

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Sat / act prep online guides and tips, how to write a perfect "why this college" essay.

College Essays

Did you think you were all done pouring out your blood, sweat, and tears in written form for your personal statement , only to be faced with the "why this college?" supplemental essay? This question might seem simple but is in fact a crucial and potentially tricky part of many college applications. What exactly is the "why us?" essay trying to understand about you? And how do you answer this question without falling into its many pitfalls or making any rookie mistakes?

In this article, I'll explain why colleges want you to be able to explain why you are applying. I'll also discuss how to generate and brainstorm topics for this question and how to make yourself sound sincere and committed. Finally, we'll go over some "why this school?" essay do s and don't s.

This article is pretty detailed, so here's a brief overview of what we'll be covering:

Why Do Colleges Want You to Write a "Why Us?" Essay?

Two types of "why this college" essay prompts, step 1: research the school, step 2: brainstorm potential essay topics, step 3: nail the execution, example of a great "why this college" essay.

College admissions officers have to read an incredible amount of student work to put together a winning class, so trust me when I say that everything they ask you to write is meaningful and important .

The purpose of the "why us?" essay goes two ways. On one hand, seeing how you answer this question gives admissions officers a sense of whether you know and value their school .

On the other hand, having to verbalize why you are applying gives you the chance to think about what you want to get out of your college experience  and whether your target schools fit your goals and aspirations.

What Colleges Get Out Of Reading Your "Why This College?" Essay

Colleges want to check three things when they read this essay.

First, they want to see that you have a sense of what makes this college different and special.

• Do you know something about the school's mission, history, or values?
• Have you thought about the school's specific approach to learning?
• Are you comfortable with the school's traditions and the overall feel of student life here?

Second, they want proof that you will be a good fit for the school.

• Where do your interests lie? Do they correspond to this school's strengths?
• Is there something about you that meshes well with some aspect of the school?
• How will you contribute to college life? How will you make your mark on campus?

And third, they want to see that this school will, in turn, be a good fit for you.

• What do you want to get out of college? Will this college be able to provide that? Will this school contribute to your future success?
• What will you take advantage of on campus (e.g., academic programs, volunteer or travel opportunities, internships, or student organizations)?
• Will you succeed academically? Does this school provide the right rigor and pace for your ideal learning environment?

What You Get Out Of Writing Your "Why This College?" Essay

Throughout this process of articulating your answers to the questions above, you will also benefit in a couple of key ways:

It Lets You Build Excitement about the School

Finding specific programs and opportunities at schools you are already happy about will give you a grounded sense of direction for when you start school . At the same time, by describing what is great about schools that are low on your list, you'll likely boost your enthusiasm for these colleges and keep yourself from feeling that they're nothing more than lackluster fallbacks.

It Helps You Ensure That You're Making the Right Choice

Writing the "why us?" essay can act as a moment of clarity. It's possible that you won't be able to come up with any reasons for applying to a particular school. If further research fails to reveal any appealing characteristics that fit with your goals and interests, this school is likely not for you.

At the end of your four years, you want to feel like this, so take your "Why This College?" essay to heart.

The "why this college?" essay is best thought of as a back-and-forth between you and the college . This means that your essay will really be answering two separate, albeit related, questions:

• "Why us?": This is where you explain what makes the school special in your eyes, what attracted you to it, and what you think you'll get out of your experience there.
• "Why you?": This is the part where you talk about why you'll fit in at the school; what qualities, skills, talents, or abilities you'll contribute to student life; and how your future will be impacted by the school and its opportunities.

Colleges usually use one of these approaches to frame this essay , meaning that your essay will lean heavier toward whichever question is favored in the prompt. For example, if the prompt is all about "why us?" you'll want to put your main focus on praising the school. If the prompt instead is mostly configured as "why you?" you'll want to dwell at length on your fit and potential.

It's good to remember that these two prompts are simply two sides of the same coin. Your reasons for wanting to apply to a particular school can be made to fit either of these questions.

For instance, say you really want the chance to learn from the world-famous Professor X. A "why us?" essay might dwell on how amazing an opportunity studying with him would be for you, and how he anchors the Telepathy department.

Meanwhile, a "why you?" essay would point out that your own academic telepathy credentials and future career goals make you an ideal student to learn from Professor X, a renowned master of the field.

Next up, I'll show you some real-life examples of what these two different approaches to the same prompt look like.

Clarifying why you want to study with a particular professor in a specific department can demonstrate to college admissions staff that you've done your research on the school.

"Why Us?" Prompts

• Why [this college]?
• Why are you interested in [this college]?
• Why is [this college] a good choice for you?
• What do you like best about [this college]?
• Why do you want to attend [this college]?

Below are some examples of actual "why us?" college essay prompts:

• Colorado College : "Describe how your personal experiences with a particular community make you a student who would benefit from Colorado College’s Block Plan."
• Tufts University : " I am applying to Tufts because… "
• Tulane University : "Describe why you are interested in joining the Tulane community. Consider your experiences, talents, and values to illustrate what you would contribute to the Tulane community if admitted." (via the Common App )
• University of Michigan : "Describe the unique qualities that attract you to the specific undergraduate College or School (including preferred admission and dual degree programs) to which you are applying at the University of Michigan. How would that curriculum support your interests?"
• Wellesley College : " When choosing a college, you are choosing an intellectual community and a place where you believe that you can live, learn, and flourish. We know that there are more than 100 reasons to choose Wellesley, but it's a good place to start. Visit the Wellesley 100 and select two items that attract, inspire, or celebrate what you would bring to our community. Have fun! Use this opportunity to reflect personally on what items appeal to you most and why. "

In a "why us?" essay, focus on the specific aspects of the school that appeal to you and how you will flourish because of those offerings.

"Why You?" Prompts

• Why are you a good match or fit for us?
• What are your interests, and how will you pursue them at [this college]?
• What do you want to study, and how will that correspond to our program?
• What or how will you contribute?
• Why you at [this college]?
• Why are you applying to [this college]?

Here are some examples of the "why you?" version of the college essay:

• Babson College : " A defining element of the Babson experience is learning and thriving in an equitable and inclusive community with a wide range of perspectives and interests. Please share something about your background, lived experiences, or viewpoint(s) that speaks to how you will contribute to and learn from Babson's collaborative community. "
• Bowdoin College : "Generations of students have found connection and meaning in Bowdoin's 'The Offer of the College.' ... Which line from the Offer resonates most with you? Optional: The Offer represents Bowdoin's values. Please reflect on the line you selected and how it has meaning to you." (via the Common App )

In a "why you?" essay, focus on how your values, interests, and motivations align with the school's offerings and how you'll contribute to campus life.

No matter how the prompt is worded, this essay is a give-and-take of what you and the college have to offer each other. Your job is to quickly zoom in on your main points and use both precision and detail to sound sincere, excited, and authentic.

How do you effectively explain the benefits you see this particular school providing for you and the contributions you will bring to the table as a student there? And how can you do this best using the small amount of space that you have (usually just one to two paragraphs)?

In this section, we'll go through the process of writing the "Why This College?" essay, step-by-step. First, I'll talk about the prep work you'll need to do. Next, we'll go through how to brainstorm good topics (and touch on what topics to avoid). I'll give you some tips on transforming your ideas and research into an actual essay. Finally, I'll take apart an actual "why us?" essay to show you why and how it works.

Before you can write about a school, you'll need to know specific things that make it stand out and appeal to you and your interests . So where do you look for these? And how do you find the details that will speak to you? Here are some ways you can learn more about a school.

In-Person Campus Visits

If you're going on college tours , you've got the perfect opportunity to gather information about the school. Bring a notepad and write down the following:

• Your tour guide's name
• One to two funny, surprising, or enthusiastic things your guide said about the school
• Any unusual features of the campus, such as buildings, sculptures, layout, history, or traditions

Try to also connect with students or faculty while you're there. If you visit a class, note which class it is and who teaches it. See whether you can briefly chat with a student (e.g., in the class you visit, around campus, or in a dining hall), and ask what they like most about the school or what has been most surprising about being there.

Don't forget to write down the answer! Trust me, you'll forget it otherwise—especially if you do this on multiple college visits.

Virtual Campus Visits

If you can't visit a campus in person, the next best thing is an online tour , either from the school's own website or from other websites, such as YOUniversityTV , CampusTours , or YouTube (search "[School Name] + tour").

You can also connect with students without visiting the campus in person . Some admissions websites list contact information for currently enrolled students you can email to ask one or two questions about what their experience of the school has been like.

Or if you know what department, sport, or activity you're interested in, you can ask the admissions office to put you in touch with a student who is involved with that particular interest.

If you can't visit a campus in person, request a video chat with admissions staff, a current student, or a faculty member to get a better sense of specific topics you might write about in your essay.

Alumni Interview

If you have an interview , ask your interviewer questions about their experience at the school and about what going to that school has done for them since graduation. As always, take notes!

College Fairs

If you have a chance to go to a college fair where your ideal college has representatives, don't just attend and pick up a brochure. Instead, e ngage the representatives in conversation, and ask them about what they think makes the school unique .  Jot down notes on any interesting details they tell you.

The College's Own Materials

Colleges publish lots and lots of different admissions materials—and all of these will be useful for your research. Here are some suggestions for what you can use. (You should be able to find all of the following resources online.)

Brochures and Course Catalogs

Read the mission statement of the school; does its educational philosophy align with yours? You should also read through its catalogs. Are there any programs, classes, departments, or activities that seem tailor-made for you in some way?

Pro Tip: These interesting features you find should be unusual in some way or different from what other schools offer. For example, being fascinated with the English department isn't going to cut it unless you can discuss its unusual focus, its world-renowned professors, or the different way it structures the major that appeals to you specifically.

Alumni Magazine

Are any professors highlighted? Does their research speak to you or connect with a project you did in high school or for an extracurricular?

Sometimes alumni magazines will highlight a college's new focus or new expansion. Does the construction of a new engineering school relate to your intended major? There might also be some columns or letters written by alumni who talk about what going to this particular school has meant to them. What stands out about their experiences?

School or Campus Newspaper

Students write about the hot issues of the day, which means that the articles will be about the best and worst things on campus . It'll also give you insight into student life, opportunities that are available to students, activities you can do off campus, and so on.

The College's Social Media

Your ideal school is most likely on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, TikTok, and other social media. Follow the school to see what it's posting about.  Are there any exciting new campus developments? Professors in the news? Interesting events, clubs, or activities?

The Internet

Wikipedia is a great resource for learning basic details about a college's history, traditions, and values. I also recommend looking for forums on College Confidential that specifically deal with the school you're researching.

Another option is to search on Google for interesting phrases, such as "What students really think about [School Name]" or "[School Name] student forum." This will help you get detailed points of view, comments about specific programs or courses, and insight into real student life.

So what should you do now that you've completed a bunch of research? Answer: use it to develop connection points between you and your dream school. These connections will be the skeleton of your "why this college?" essay.

Find the Gems in Your Research

You have on hand all kinds of information, from your own personal experiences on campus and your conversations with people affiliated with your ideal school to what you've learned from campus publications and tidbits gleaned from the web.

Now, it's time to sift through all of your notes to find the three to five things that really speak to you. Link what you've learned about the school to how you can plug into this school's life, approach, and environment. That way, no matter whether your school's prompt is more heavily focused on the "why us?" or "why you?" part of the give-and-take, you'll have an entry point into the essay.

But what should these three to five things be? What should you keep in mind when you're looking for the gem that will become your topic?

Here are some words of wisdom from Calvin Wise , director of recruitment and former associate director of admissions at Johns Hopkins University (emphasis mine):

" Focus on what makes us unique and why that interests you. Do your research, and articulate a multidimensional connection to the specific college or university. We do not want broad statements (the brick pathways and historic buildings are beautiful) or a rehash of the information on our website (College X offers a strong liberal arts curriculum). All institutions have similarities. We want you to talk about our differences. "

Time to find that diamond, amethyst, opal, tourmaline, or amber in the rough.

Check Your Gems for Color and Clarity

When I say "check your gems," I mean make sure that each of the three to five things you've found is something your ideal school has that other schools don't have.

This something should be seen from your own perspective. The point isn't to generically praise the school but instead to go into detail about why it's so great for you that they have this thing.

This something you find should be meaningful to the school and specific to you. For example, if you focus on academics (e.g., courses, instructors, opportunities, or educational philosophy), find a way to link them either to your previous work or to your future aspirations.

This something should not be shallow and nonspecific. Want to live in a city? Every city has more than one college in it. Find a way to explain why this specific college in this specific city calls to you. Like pretty architecture? Many schools are beautiful, so dwell on why this particular place feels unlike any other. Like good weather, beach, skiing, or some other geographical attribute? There are many schools located near these places, and they know that people enjoy sunbathing. Either build a deeper connection or skip these as reasons.

Convert Your Gems into Essay Topics

Every "why this college?" essay is going to answer both the "why us?" and the "why you?" parts of the back-and-forth equation. But depending on which way your target school has worded its prompt, you'll lean more heavily on that part . This is why I'm going to split this brainstorming into two parts—to go with the "why us?" and "why you?" types of questions.

Of course, since they are both sides of the same coin, you can always easily flip each of these ideas around to have it work well for the other type of prompt . For example, a "why us?" essay might talk about how interesting the XYZ interdisciplinary project is and how it fits well with your senior project.

By contrast, a "why you?" essay would take the same idea but flip it to say that you've learned through your senior project how you deeply value an interdisciplinary approach to academics, making you a great fit for this school and its commitment to such work, as evidenced by project XYZ.

Describing how project XYZ demonstrates your investment in a particular course of study that then happens to align with a specific program at the university is an effective approach to the "why you?" essay.

Possible "Why Us?" Topics

• How a particular program of study, internship requirement, or volunteer connection will help further your specific career goals .
• The school's interesting approach to your future major (if you know what that will be) or a major that combines several disciplines that appeal to you and fit with your current academic work and interests.
• How the school handles financial aid and the infrastructure setup for low-income students and what that means for you in terms of opening doors.
• A story about how you became interested in the school (if you learned about it in an interesting way). For example, did the institution host a high school contest you took part in? Did you attend an art exhibit or stage performance there that you enjoyed and that your own artistic work aligns with?
• How you overcame an initial disinterest in the school (be sure to minimize this first negative impression). Did you do more research? Interact with someone on campus? Learn about the school's commitment to the community? Learn about interesting research being done there?
• A positive interaction you had with current students, faculty, or staff, as long as this is more than just, "Everyone I met was really nice."
• An experience you had while on a campus tour. Was there a super-passionate tour guide? Any information that surprised you? Did something happen to transform your idea about the school or campus life (in a good way)?
• Interesting interdisciplinary work going on at the university and how that connects with your academic interests, career goals, or previous high school work.
• The history of the school —but only if it's meaningful to you in some way. Has the school always been committed to fostering minority, first-generation, or immigrant students? Was it founded by someone you admire? Did it take an unpopular (but, to you, morally correct) stance at some crucial moment in history?
• An amazing professor you can't wait to learn from. Is there a chemistry professor whose current research meshes with a science fair project you did? A professor who's a renowned scholar on your favorite literary or artistic period or genre? A professor whose book on economics finally made you understand the most recent financial crisis?
• A class that sounds fascinating , especially if it's in a field you want to major in.
• A facility or piece of equipment you can't wait to work in or with  and that doesn't exist in many other places. Is there a specialty library with rare medieval manuscripts? Is there an observatory?
• A required curriculum that appeals to you because it provides a solid grounding in the classics, shakes up the traditional canon, connects all the students on campus in one intellectual project, or is taught in a unique way.

If the school can boast a cutting-edge laboratory where you dream of conducting research, that would be a strong focus for a "Why Us?" essay.

Possible "Why You?" Topics

• Do you want to continue a project you worked on in high school? Talk about how or where in the current course, club, and program offerings this work would fit in. Why will you be a good addition to the team?
• Have you always been involved in a community service project that's already being done on campus? Write about integrating life on campus with events in the surrounding community.
• Do you plan to keep performing in the arts, playing music, working on the newspaper, or engaging in something else you were seriously committed to in high school? Discuss how excited you are to join that existing organization.
• Are you the perfect person to take advantage of an internship program (e.g., because you have already worked in this field, were exposed to it through your parents, or have completed academic work that gives you some experience with it)?
• Are you the ideal candidate for a study abroad opportunity (e.g., because you can speak the language of the country, it's a place where you've worked or studied before, or your career goals are international in some respect)?
• Are you a stand-out match for an undergraduate research project (e.g., because you'll major in this field, you've always wanted to work with this professor, or you want to pursue research as a career option)?
• Is there something you were deeply involved with that doesn't currently exist on campus? Offer to start a club for it. And I mean a club; you aren't going to magically create a new academic department or even a new academic course, so don't try offering that. If you do write about this, make double (and even triple) sure that the school doesn't already have a club, course, or program for this interest.
• What are some of the programs or activities you plan to get involved with on campus , and what unique qualities will you bring to them?
• Make this a mini version of a personal statement you never wrote.  Use this essay as another chance to show a few more of the skills, talents, or passions that don't appear in your actual college essay. What's the runner-up interest that you didn't write about? What opportunity, program, or offering at the school lines up with it?

One way to impress admissions staff in a "Why You?" essay is to discuss your fascination with a particular topic in a specific discipline, such as kinetic sculpture, and how you want to pursue that passion (e.g., as a studio art major).

Possible Topics for a College That's Not Your First Choice

• If you're writing about a school you're not completely psyched about, one way to sidestep the issue is to focus on what getting this degree will do for you in the future . How do you see yourself changing existing systems, helping others, or otherwise succeeding?
• Alternatively, discuss what the school values academically, socially, environmentally, or philosophically and how this connects with what you also care about . Does it have a vegan, organic, and cruelty-free cafeteria? A relationship with a local farm or garden? De-emphasized fraternity involvement? Strong commitment to environmental issues? Lots of opportunities to contribute to the community surrounding the school? Active inclusion and a sense of belonging for various underrepresented groups?
• Try to find at least one or two features you're excited about for each of the schools on your list. If you can't think of a single reason why this would be a good place for you to go, maybe you shouldn't be applying there!

Topics to Avoid in Your Essay

• Don't write about general characteristics, such as a school's location (or the weather in that location), reputation, or student body size. For example, anyone applying to the Webb Institute , which has just about 100 students , should by all means talk about having a preference for tiny, close-knit communities. By contrast, schools in sunny climates know that people enjoy good weather, but if you can't connect the outdoors with the college itself, think of something else to say.
• Don't talk about your sports fandom. Saying, "I can see myself in crimson and white/blue and orange/[some color] and [some other color]" is both overused and not a persuasive reason for wanting to go to a particular college. After all, you could cheer for a team without going to the school! Unless you're an athlete, you're an aspiring mascot performer, or you have a truly one-of-a-kind story to tell about your link to the team, opt for a different track.
• Don't copy descriptions from the college's website to tell admissions officers how great their institution is. They don't want to hear praise; they want to hear how you connect with their school. So if something on the college brochure speaks to you, explain why this specific detail matters to you and how your past experiences, academic work, extracurricular interests, or hobbies relate to that detail.
• Don't use college rankings as a reason you want to go to a school. Of course prestige matters, but schools that are ranked right next to each other on the list are at about the same level of prestige. What makes you choose one over the other?
• If you decide to write about a future major, don't just talk about what you want to study and why . Make sure that you also explain why you want to study this thing at this particular school . What do they do differently from other colleges?
• Don't wax poetic about the school's pretty campus. "From the moment I stepped on your campus, I knew it was the place for me" is another cliché—and another way to say basically nothing about why you actually want to go to this particular school. Lots of schools are pretty, and many are pretty in the exact same way.

Pop quiz: This pretty gothic building is on what college campus? Yes, that's right—it could be anywhere.

When you've put together the ideas that will make up your answer to the "why us?" question, it's time to build them into a memorable essay. Here are some tips for doing that successfully:

• Jump right in. The essay is short, so there's no need for an introduction or conclusion. Spend the first paragraph delving into your best one or two reasons for applying. Then, use the second paragraph to go into slightly less detail about reasons 2 (or 3) through 5.
• To thine own self be true. Write in your own voice, and be sincere about what you're saying. Believe me—the reader can tell when you mean it and when you're just blathering!
• Details, details, details. Show the school that you've done your research. Are there any classes, professors, clubs, or activities you're excited about at the school? Be specific (e.g., "I'm fascinated by the work Dr. Jenny Johnson has done with interactive sound installations").
• If you plan on attending if admitted, say so. Colleges care about the numbers of acceptances deeply, so it might help to know you're a sure thing. But don't write this if you don't mean it!
• Don't cut and paste the same essay for every school. At least once, you'll most likely forget to change the school name or some other telling detail. You also don't want to have too much vague, cookie-cutter reasoning, or else you'll start to sound bland and forgettable.

For more tips, check out our step-by-step essay-writing advice .

Avoid cookie-cutter responses to "why this college?" essay prompts. Instead, provide an essay that's personalized to that particular institution.

At this point, it'll be helpful to take a look at a "why us?" essay that works and figure out what the author did to create a meaningful answer to this challenging question.

Here is a "Why Tufts?" essay from James Gregoire '19 for Tufts University :

It was on my official visit with the cross country team that I realized Tufts was the perfect school for me. Our topics of conversation ranged from Asian geography to efficient movement patterns, and everyone spoke enthusiastically about what they were involved in on campus. I really related with the guys I met, and I think they represent the passion that Tufts' students have. I can pursue my dream of being a successful entrepreneur by joining the Tufts Entrepreneurs Society, pursuing an Entrepreneurial Leadership minor, and taking part in an up-and-coming computer science program.

Here are some of the main reasons this essay is so effective:

• Interaction with current students. James writes about hanging out with the cross-country team and sounds excited about meeting them.
• "I'm a great fit." He uses the conversation with the cross-country team members to talk about his own good fit here ("I really related with the guys I met").
• Why the school is special. James also uses the conversation as a way to show that he enjoys the variety of opportunities Tufts offers (their fun conversation covers Asian geography, movement patterns, and other things they "were involved with on campus").
• Taking advantage of this specialness. James doesn't just list things Tufts offers but also explains which of them are of specific value to him. He's interested in being an entrepreneur, so the Tufts Entrepreneurs Society and the Entrepreneurial Leadership courses appeal to him.
• Awareness of what the school is up to. Finally, James shows that he's aware of the latest Tufts developments when he mentions the new computer science program.

The Bottom Line: Writing a Great "Why This College?" Essay

• Proof that you understand what makes this college different and special
• Evidence that you'll be a good fit at this school
• Evidence that this college will, in turn, be a good fit for you

The prompt may be phrased in one of two ways: "Why us?" or "Why you?" But these are sides of the same coin and will be addressed in your essay regardless of the prompt style.

Writing the perfect "why this school?" essay requires you to first research the specific qualities and characteristics of this school that appeal to you. You can find this information by doing any or all of the following:

• Visiting campuses in person or virtually to interact with current students and faculty
• Posing questions to your college interviewer or to representatives at college fairs
• Reading the college's own materials , such as its brochures, official website, alumni magazine, campus newspaper, and social media
• Looking at other websites that talk about the school

To find a topic to write about for your essay, find the three to five things that really speak to you about the school , and then link each of them to yourself, your interests, your goals, or your strengths.

Avoid using clichés that could be true for any school, such as architecture, geography, weather, or sports fandom. Instead, focus on the details that differentiate your intended school from all the others .

What's Next?

Are you also working on your personal statement? If you're using the Common App, check out our complete breakdown of the Common App prompts and learn how to pick the best prompt for you .

If you're applying to a University of California school, we've got an in-depth article on how to write effective UC personal statements .

And if you're submitting ApplyTexas applications, read our helpful guide on how to approach the many different ApplyTexas essay prompts .

Struggling with the college application process as a whole? Our expert guides teach you how to ask for recommendations , how to write about extracurriculars , and how to research colleges .

Anna scored in the 99th percentile on her SATs in high school, and went on to major in English at Princeton and to get her doctorate in English Literature at Columbia. She is passionate about improving student access to higher education.

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How to Write the “Why This College” Essay (With an Example!)

Varonika Ware is a content writer at Scholarships360. Varonika earned her undergraduate degree in Mass Communications at Louisiana State University. During her time at LSU, she worked with the Center of Academic Success to create the weekly Success Sunday newsletter. Varonika also interned at the Louisiana Department of Insurance in the Public Affairs office with some of her graphics appearing in local news articles.

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Bill Jack has over a decade of experience in college admissions and financial aid. Since 2008, he has worked at Colby College, Wesleyan University, University of Maine at Farmington, and Bates College.

Maria Geiger is Director of Content at Scholarships360. She is a former online educational technology instructor and adjunct writing instructor. In addition to education reform, Maria’s interests include viewpoint diversity, blended/flipped learning, digital communication, and integrating media/web tools into the curriculum to better facilitate student engagement. Maria earned both a B.A. and an M.A. in English Literature from Monmouth University, an M. Ed. in Education from Monmouth University, and a Virtual Online Teaching Certificate (VOLT) from the University of Pennsylvania.

Applying to college is a big decision that brings a lot of excitement and stress. This is especially true when it comes to answering the “why this college” prompt asked by so many colleges. However daunting these prompts might seem, you got this. Keep reading to learn tips and tricks to write your “why this college” essay, and take a look at an example essay!

“Why this college?” essay prompts 

The “Why this college?” essay is probably one of the most common essays you’ll come across during your application process. This is partially because admissions committees want students that’re as interested and passionate about their institution. Some popular colleges that offer “why this college?” prompts include:

• Columbia University : “Why are you interested in attending Columbia University? We encourage you to consider the aspect(s) that you find unique and compelling about Columbia. (150 words or fewer)
• Duke University : “What is your sense of Duke as a university and a community, and why do you consider it a good match for you? If there is something in particular about our offerings that attracts you, feel free to share that as well. (max. 250 words)”
• University of Michigan : “Describe the unique qualities that attract you to the specific undergraduate College or School to which you are applying at the University of Michigan. How would that curriculum support your interests?” (Minimum: 100 words/Maximum: 550 words)

As you can see, all three of the prompts are a variation of the basic “why this college” question. Let’s take a look at a sample response essay written for Columbia University. 

“Why this college?” sample essay

Dear Columbia University, 

This is probably the hundredth essay you’ve read in the sea of applicants, and as you’re likely expecting, I could tell you that I’m different from them all. Though in some ways, I’m the same. Like them, I want to stand on the corner of Broadway and 116th St. and know I chose the perfect school to study literary arts with a focus on fiction writing. 

Even more so, I strive to be one of the Columbia Greats that inspired me to pick up a pen. Though, you shouldn’t want me because I might be the next Allen Ginsberg, but because I plan on being a writer that captures the virtue found in the rye of J.D. Salinger, the watchful gaze of Zora Neale Hurston, and the freshness of my own style. Amongst your walls and tutelage, these literary greats blossomed, as I hope to.

Applicant Name

Why this essay works:

• Starts with a compelling statement to interest the audience
• Answers the “why this college?” question by discussing notable alumni and the arts program
• Uses a unique approach to the prompt question that reflects interest in the major of choice
• Explains why the admissions committee should choose this applicant
• Stays within the word count limit

Also see: How to respond to this year’s Common App essay prompts

Mistakes to avoid when writing a “why this college” essay

Generalizing.

When writing any essay, generalizing usually isn’t the way to go. Readers want to get invested in the story or argument you’re presenting, and the admissions office is no different. Details are a key component of making your essay stand out. 

The admissions committee wants to get to know you and assess how you’ll fit into their institution. No two applicants are the same, and you should strive to prove that through your unique essay. 

Placating the admissions office

It can be easy to fall back on simply telling your college’s admissions committee what they want to hear. However, you shouldn’t just pull facts and figures from the website or quote the college’s brochure. Individualize your essay not only to capture the attention of your reader, but to display interest in your college of choice.

Anyone can put general information in their application, but it takes effort to explain why you want to attend a particular school, how admission would affect your life, and what the school has to gain from your attendance. Think of it as a persuasive essay where you have to back up your argument with details. 

Also see: An insider’s perspective into what goes on in college admissions offices

Tips for writing your essay

Find a connection.

Even before you start writing your essay, figure out the connection between you and your college of choice. 

Is there a particular professor you want to study under? Are you a legacy applicant? Is it the campus of your dreams? Are you excited for a particular program? 

Asking yourself questions like this can help pinpoint what’s motivating you to apply to a university and why they should admit you. Explaining your connection to your school of choice can show the admissions committee that you belong on their campus. 

It will strengthen your application and help you individualize your application. Create an interesting or anecdotal story out of your connection in order to set yourself apart.

Also see: How to write an essay about yourself

Outline and edit

College essays usually range from around 200 – 500 words, which can go by much quicker than you might think. This is why it’s ideal to outline your essay once you’ve decided what to write about. It can be easy to get distracted by the little details, but emphasize the main points that are essential to the story you’re trying to tell the admissions office. 

It’s also a good idea to thoroughly read and edit your essay multiple times. You’ll want to submit the complete and final version of your essay, not something that reads like a rough draft. 

Remember, your parents, advisors, teachers, and peers can be helpful resources during revision. Feedback is an important aspect of the editing process.

Additional resources

Congratulations on starting your applications to college and working so diligently on them! Fortunately, Scholarships360 has even more resources to offer that can help propel your college journey in the right direction. 

• Start choosing your major
• Find the supplemental essay guide for your college
• Learn what “demonstrated interest” means for your application

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12 Effective “Why This College?” Essay Examples

What’s covered.

• Essay 1: UPenn Nursing
• Essay 2: UPenn
• Essay 3: UW Madison
• Essay 4: Northwestern
• Essay 5: NYU
• Essay 6: NYU
• Essay 7: Boston University
• Essay 8: Boston University
• Essay 9: Tufts
• Essay 10: Tufts
• Essay 11: Georgia Tech
• Essay 12: Georgia Tech

Where to Get Your Essays Edited

The “ Why This College?” essay is one of the most common supplemental prompts. These school-specific essays help colleges understand if you’re a good fit for them, and if they’re a good fit for you.

In this post, we’ll share 12 “Why This College?” essay examples from real students and explain what they did well, and what could be improved. Read these examples to understand how to write a strong supplemental essay that improves your chances of acceptance.

Please note: Looking at examples of real essays students have submitted to colleges can be very beneficial to get inspiration for your essays. You should never copy or plagiarize from these examples when writing your own essays. Colleges can tell when an essay isn’t genuine and will not view students favorably if they plagiarized.

Essay Example #1: UPenn Nursing

Prompt: How will you explore your intellectual and academic interests at the University of Pennsylvania? Please answer this question given the specific undergraduate school to which you are applying (650 words).

Sister Simone Roach, a theorist of nursing ethics, said, “caring is the human mode of being.” I have long been inspired by Sister Roach’s Five C’s of Caring: commitment, conscience, competence, compassion, and confidence. Penn both embraces and fosters these values through a rigorous, interdisciplinary curriculum and unmatched access to service and volunteer opportunities.

COMMITMENT. Reading through the activities that Penn Quakers devote their time to (in addition to academics!) felt like drinking from a firehose in the best possible way. As a prospective nursing student with interests outside of my major, I value this level of flexibility. I plan to leverage Penn’s liberal arts curriculum to gain an in-depth understanding of the challenges LGBT people face, especially regarding healthcare access. Through courses like “Interactional Processes with LGBT Individuals” and volunteering at the Mazzoni Center for outreach, I hope to learn how to better support the Penn LGBT community as well as my family and friends, including my cousin, who came out as trans last year.

CONSCIENCE. As one of the first people in my family to attend a four-year university, I wanted a school that promoted a sense of moral responsibility among its students. At Penn, professors challenge their students to question and recreate their own set of morals by sparking thought- provoking, open-minded discussions. I can imagine myself advocating for universal healthcare in courses such as “Health Care Reform & Future of American Health System” and debating its merits with my peers. Studying in an environment where students confidently voice their opinions – conservative or liberal – will push me to question and strengthen my value system.

COMPETENCE. Two aspects that drew my attention to Penn’s BSN program were its high-quality research opportunities and hands-on nursing projects. Through its Office of Nursing Research, Penn connects students to faculty members who share similar research interests. As I volunteered at a nursing home in high school, I hope to work with Dr. Carthon to improve the quality of care for senior citizens. Seniors, especially minorities, face serious barriers to healthcare that I want to resolve. Additionally, Penn’s unique use of simulations to bridge the gap between classroom learning and real-world application impressed me. Using computerized manikins that mimic human responses, classes in Penn’s nursing program allow students to apply their emergency medical skills in a mass casualty simulation and monitor their actions afterward through a video system. Participating in this activity will help me identify my strengths and areas for improvement regarding crisis management and medical care in a controlled yet realistic setting. Research opportunities and simulations will develop my skills even before I interact with patients.

COMPASSION. I value giving back through community service, and I have a particular interest in Penn’s Community Champions and Nursing Students For Sexual & Reproductive Health (NSRH). As a four-year volunteer health educator, I hope to continue this work as a Community Champions member. I am excited to collaborate with medical students to teach fourth and fifth graders in the city about cardiology or lead a chair dance class for the elders at the LIFE Center. Furthermore, as a feminist who firmly believes in women’s abortion rights, I’d like to join NSRH in order to advocate for women’s health on campus. At Penn, I can work with like-minded people to make a meaningful difference.

CONFIDENCE. All of the Quakers that I have met possess one defining trait: confidence. Each student summarized their experiences at Penn as challenging but fulfilling. Although I expect my coursework to push me, from my conversations with current Quakers I know it will help me to be far more effective in my career.

The Five C’s of Caring are important heuristics for nursing, but they also provide insight into how I want to approach my time in college. I am eager to engage with these principles both as a nurse and as a Penn Quaker, and I can’t wait to start.

What the Essay Did Well

This essay has many positive aspects, but the most impressive one is the structure. Utilizing the Five C’s of Caring to discuss Penn’s offerings was a genius way of tying in this student’s passion for nursing while also making their essay exciting and easy to read. Beginning each paragraph with the respective adjective helped focus the paragraph and allowed the student to demonstrate how they exemplify each quality without explicitly stating it. The student wasn’t afraid to think outside the box and add creativity to their essay structure, which really paid off.

Another positive is how specific and specialized the Penn resources and opportunities the student mentions are. This essay did not fall into the trap of name-dropping professors or programs. In every paragraph, there was a connection to something the student wants to do at Penn to further themselves in the respective characteristic they were describing.

Not only did this student mention a resource at Penn—whether it was a professor, a class, or a club—in every paragraph, but they elaborated on what that resource was and how it would help them achieve their goal of becoming a nurse. The what and how is what sets this essay apart from other supplements that just name-drop resources for the sake of it. The amount of detail this essay went into about some of these resources makes it clear to the admissions officers reading the essay that this student has seriously looked into Penn and has a strong desire to come to campus and use these resources.

What Could Be Improved

One thing this essay could do to make it stronger is improve the first paragraph. The student does a good job of setting up Sister Roach and the Five C’s, but they don’t mention anything about their desire to study or pursue nursing. The first paragraph mentions both Sister Roach and Penn, but left out the student. This could be fixed by simply adding something along the lines of “I can’t wait to embody these values as a nursing student at Penn” to the paragraph.

Essay Example #2: UPenn

Prompt: Considering the specific undergraduate school you have selected, how will you explore your academic and intellectual interests at the University of Pennsylvania?  For students applying to the coordinated dual-degree and specialized programs, please answer these questions in regard to your single-degree school choice; your interest in the coordinated dual-degree or specialized program may be addressed through the program-specific essay. (300-450 words)

I always loved watching the worms when it rained. I used to put my little raincoat on, sit on the doorsteps, and watch them move toward the puddles. My younger brother, forever intent on destroying the world around him, would try to stomp on the worms, and I would run after him screaming. In my imagination, the brain looked like a pile of squiggly worms. However, my neuroscience curiosity has since grown beyond a worm’s habits.

For example, my mother thought that I was insane when I wanted to watch American Murder: The Family Next Door . To her immense relief, I was interested in the psychology of the criminal rather than the crime itself. Although neuroscience is my primary interest, I also hope to learn more about the intersection between law and medicine at the UPenn College of Arts and Sciences. I’ve been able to explore this topic through various projects at school such as presentations on juvenile crime and the death penalty.

At the University of Pennsylvania, I look forward to taking classes like Forensic Neuroscience (BIBB 050) as well as Neuroscience and Society (PSYC 247) both of which directly combine my two interests. Hopefully, the Take Your Professor to Dinner program resumes as I would make sure to talk to Dr. Daniel Langleben about his research on forensic functional brain imaging over a meal of Philly cheesesteaks.

I also hope to participate in the Race, Science, and Society Program where I can discover how race biases and neuroscience go hand-in-hand and contribute to the fight against racism. The Beyond Arrests: Re-Thinking Systematic-Oppression Group immediately caught my attention while looking at Penn’s opportunities to engage in relevant dialogue. My fascination with the criminal system began with reading Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment , and Penn will both fuel that curiosity as well as introduce new questions about the world of justice reform.

As an eight-year Latin scholar and a five-time reader of the Percy Jackson franchise, I would like to take classes in the Penn Classical Studies department where I can learn more about the impact of ancient cultures on society today. Classes such as Greek and Roman Medicine (CLST 271) would intersect my interests in medicine and classical civilizations.

Although I do harbor a deep love for Philly cheesesteaks and enjoyment of running in strange places like the Woodlands Cemetery, the range of programs to support my diverse interests and unmatched opportunities to put learning into action make me confident that the University of Pennsylvania is the best university for me to succeed.

The real strength in the essay lies in the sheer number of details this student is able to include in a short space, without sacrificing style and flow. The first two paragraphs really have nothing to do with Penn, but the inclusion of them makes this response feel like an essay, rather than a list of offerings at Penn. Striking the balance is important, and the anecdote at the beginning ultimately humanizes the writer.

From the three unique courses to the specific professor and his research to the race and criminal justice programs, this student has clearly done their homework on Penn! The key to this essay’s success isn’t just mentioning the offerings at Penn that excite the student, but the context that explains how each opportunity fits into the student’s academic interests.

Adding book titles like Crime and Punishment and Percy Jackson to support their passion for the criminal justice system and classics are extra details that help us learn more about how this student pursues their passions outside of the classroom. Finding little ways to humanize yourself throughout the essay can take it from good to great.

One area of improvement for this essay is the structure. It follows a very traditional “ Why This College? ” framework—start with an anecdote, then discuss classes, and then extracurriculars and programs—that gets old quickly for admissions officers.

A great way to add some spice to the format would be to use a sample schedule for the day. This essay mentions three different classes, two different groups, and a Take Your Professor to Dinner opportunity. Together, that’s the recipe for a full day at UPenn!

There are a few ways to play around with an essay that follows a typical day-in-the-life. Maybe each paragraph starts with a time and explains what they do during that hour. Maybe they narrate walking through campus on their way from one class to the next and what they just learned. However they choose to go about it, adding in a playful spin to the traditional essay structure is one of the best ways to instantly set an essay apart from the crowd. 

Essay Example #3: UW Madison

Prompt: Tell us why you decided to apply to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In addition, please include why you are interested in studying the major(s) you have selected. If you selected undecided, please describe your areas of possible academic interest. (650 words)

Essay – # Day 117

7:30 am… As I open my eyes, I look at the pinboard in front of my bed. Written in red block letters are two of the many goals of my life: “Make life better and more independent for the Visually impaired; Inspire kids to explore the field of STEM, making them the future problem solvers.“

Keeping these goals afresh in mind, I freshen up and prepare for the first class of the day, ​ECE 533 Image Processing. As the professor explains the Applications of Image Processing in Computer Vision, a light bulb sparks in my mind. I can modify the head contraption of PERIPHIS to identify objects in peripheral vision and alert the wearer via an earpiece using Text to Speech (TTS). 

After the class, I see Professor Mohit Gupta at the WISION Lab, where he shares his insights from the Block World Cameras system, which helps to geometrize 3D Man-made environments. We brainstorm ways we can implement this system on PERIPHIS.

Deep in the discussion and intrigued by my curiosity, he asked me where my interest in this niche field sparked during high school, and then I recount the incident from 9th grade: 

“In Hindi – Agar aaj mere paas paise hote to ye din na dekhna padta” (If I had money, I would not have had to see this day.) 

These were the words of Aadiya, a glaucoma patient, who couldn’t help but cry in despair as she injured herself in an accident just because she couldn’t sense the incoming traffic. During my visit to “Baroda Association for Blind (BAB)” for a survey, I saw and experienced firsthand how hard and inaccessible it is for an underprivileged visually impaired to locomote without anyone’s assistance. 

What happened next was my first adventure into the world of Computer Science and Engineering. I dedicated the next four years to find an affordable solution to a pressing problem. It was called PERIPHIS, a smart wearable that helps alert the visually impaired wearer of impending danger while locomoting.

When I finally presented this device to Aadiya, the smile on her face made me realize how big an impact technology can make in one’s life.

11:00 am… As I head to the Engineering Hall to complete my assignments of COMP SCI 570

Introduction to Human-Computer Interaction, I crossways with my roommate from the Chadbourne Residential College, who is also interested in researching applications of Computer Vision in real life. We fix a time to chat later. 

1:20pm… After a quick bite, I head to Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory. I expand my knowledge on different applications of Computer Science to make human life better than I found. I get fascinated when I see a few students building a child-friendly humanoid robot to teach kids the principles of Coding and AI. I hop in and share insights from my experience of being the President at AiGoLearning and kindling interest in STEM for young children. I explain how crucial the UI is when it comes to technology for the young.

5:00pm… To blow off some steam and socialize, I meet up with my fellow countrymen and artists at the Indian Graduate Students’ Association. We discuss and plan the upcoming Diwali Night Music at Shannon Hall. I feel proud to share my national identity while bringing out my musical self by contributing as a Tabla player at the student organization. 

As I close my day, I reflect and think of the most unique resource at UW. It is not the labs, research facilities, classes, but the people, including the professors and students, all aligned to a single goal: “Solving problems to make society a better place.”

10:00pm… I find my way back to my dorm room and write with red block letters on my pinboard: “Meet with at least 1 Badger every day and gain new insight from them.”

This essay is a stellar example. The day in the life formatting is a common way to spice up your “Why This College?” essay, but the way this writer executes it is nearly flawless.

Opening with the vision board makes the student’s college goals clear from the very start, and this was cleverly done since vision boards are naturally one of the first things you see when you wake up.

The student then takes us to specific courses and labs and shares their thoughts on how they could improve their invention, PERIPHIS. The author seamlessly includes background information on PERIPHIS by including this hypothetical conversation with a professor who speaks their native language.

As we go through the day, we can see that this student will not only be involved academically, but also socially. We learn how important their culture is to them and how they plan to share it with the campus community.

This essay does everything a “Why This College?” essay should: it shares the student’s goals and motivations behind them, how the university can support those goals, and how the student will engage with the campus beyond academics.

There’s not much this essay could improve, besides a few formatting and wording issues. The first line of this essay—“ Essay – # Day 117”—is a great attention-grabber, but the placement of the # symbol is confusing and perhaps should’ve been in front of the number.

There are also a couple spots where wording is a bit awkward, such as these lines:

I crossways with my roommate from the Chadbourne Residential College, who is also interested in researching applications of Computer Vision in real life. We fix a time to chat later. 

It should instead say something like “I run into my roommate” and “We schedule a time”. This is likely due to English not being the student’s native language, but could’ve easily been caught by proofreading from a native speaker.

Essay Example #4: Northwestern

Prompt: While other parts of your application give us a sense of who you are, we are also excited to hear more about how you see yourself engaging with the larger Northwestern community.

In 300 words or less, help us understand how you might engage specific resources, opportunities, and/or communities here. We are curious about what these specifics are, as well as how they may enrich your time at Northwestern and beyond.

For as long as I can remember, I have seen my parents, both farmers, struggling to produce food because of the challenges presented by the environment. Joining Northwestern’s community, and majoring in Environmental Engineering, will allow me to understand what are the reasons behind climate change and learn how to stop them and/or prevent them from happening. 

Having witnessed how plant diseases affect crops, I would like to collaborate in the PLANT-Dx project and in its widespread application. I strongly believe that it will be able to help farmers to improve the quality and quantity of their production, and reduce famine around the world. At some point in my education, I want to take advantage of the study-abroad programs Northwestern has to offer and learn about farming practices in a different part of the world. In addition, I want to conduct research on sustainable alternative farming methods that adapt to the new environmental conditions and that can be practiced in countries with fewer resources.

Apart from having access to outstanding professors, rigorous academics, and cutting-edge research resources, I will be able to be part of a close-knit community genuinely curious about others’ activities, truly passionate about what they do, and not afraid to step out of their comfort zone to make of this world a better place. Being part of Engineers for a Sustainable World at Northwestern will allow me to get to know people that share one of my passions in addition to learning and teaching how to apply sustainable practices in daily life.  

I am already looking forward to marching through the Weber Arch.

This essay is extremely cohesive, as it focuses on the student’s agricultural background and desire to study environmental engineering. The student mentions a couple resources specific to Northwestern, such as the PLANT-Dx project and Engineers for a Sustainable World.

Because of the background information the student provided, their motivations for participating in these opportunities is also clear. We can see that Northwestern would be a school that would help them achieve their goals.

There are two main aspects of the essay that could be improved: the writing and its specificity.

To begin with, the intro paragraph is a bit clunky and vague.  The student should have specified the challenges the environment has presented to their parents’ farming with detailed imagery about droughts or torrential rain. The final sentence about climate change is also much too broad, and the student should’ve stated a goal in a smaller niche of environmentalism.

For example, here’s what a rewritten strong intro paragraph might look like:

The drought this year was bad, and the once-flourishing tomato crops on my family’s farm were afflicted with Southern Blight. As my family and our community struggled to put food on the table for the third year in a year, I resolved to major in Environmental Engineering at Northwestern to learn how to preserve our agriculture in the face of climate change.

Another writing error is the typo in the final paragraph, where they write “to make of this world a better place”. It’s important to proofread your essay and have others help you proofread as well!

Finally, while the essay mentions a couple specific Northwestern resources, the other resources they mention are too vague.  The student could’ve improved by mentioning a specific study abroad program and a current research project on sustainable alternative farming methods. Most colleges let you study abroad and conduct research, so you need to explain why Northwestern is the best place for your goals.

Essay Example #5: NYU

Prompt: We would like to know more about your interest in NYU. What motivated you to apply to NYU? Why have you applied or expressed interest in a particular campus, school, college, program, and or area of study? If you have applied to more than one, please also tell us why you are interested in these additional areas of study or campuses. We want to understand – Why NYU? (400 words)

“A futuristic way of looking at academics,” the student panelist said during a New York University virtual information session. I reflected on a conversation I had with my grandma; she couldn’t understand how her vegetarian granddaughter could build a career in the food industry. However much I tried convincing her that vegetarianism was the future, as it offers substantial benefits to the environment and can offer health benefits to a growing population with the same environmental resources, she insisted that tofu would never provide the same satiation as meat. She was raised in a community where meat consumption was embedded in the culture, and its production is a large part of the country’s economy. In contrast, I had the privilege of living a few steps from San Francisco, with many restaurants and grocery stores dedicated to plant-based meat alternatives. Trying innovative recipes and products eventually allowed me to develop my own recipes. Upon my move to Nicaragua, where my grandmother is from, I found my food options to be limited, expensive and hard to find. So I developed my own small-scale solutions that did not break the bank and satiated grandma.

An institution that implements forward-thinking is what I need to reach my goals of changing the future of plant-based diets and people’s views on vegetarianism. NYU’s Nutrition and Food Studies program offers multiple disciplines of food studies that I will apply to my aspirations as a vegetarian. I plan to study under Adjunct Faculty Kayleen St. John, whose success in the plant-based industry and her teaching of the ‘Foundations of Plant-Based Nutrition’ in The Vegetarian Times excites me. The variety of classes like Introduction to Food History, Food Photography, and Food Systems: Food & Agriculture will give me an overview of what is available in the food industry to be prepared for all fields. Not to be cliche, but NYU’s proximity to the city is essential for the rapidly changing vegetarian industry. The multiculturalism available in NYC and NYU will allow me to understand the food system and diets of various cultures, religions, and areas. I can explore the extremes of the food industry, from fancy restaurants to public school cafeterias. These juxtapositions, much like the one I experienced after my move to Nicaragua, will allow me to broaden my reach and demonstrate that the vegetarian diet is not something reserved for select groups but a diet attainable to all. 

A core strength of this essay is the fact it takes its time to provide the reader with ample background on why this student is interested in nutrition and food studies and how they have grappled with difficult questions and surrounding this topic in the past. It’s okay to not mention anything about NYU for a whole paragraph if you are using that space to bring depth to your interests and tell the reader the crucial backstory behind pursuing your intended degree.

Another positive aspect is the inclusion of New York City for a purposeful reason. NYU admissions officers read thousands of essays that just talk about living in NYC for the sake of NYC—this is not what they want to hear. In contrast, this essay focuses on the vast and lively food scene in New York that the student considers to be an invaluable asset to her NYU education. This is a time where including New York actually plays to the appeal of NYU, rather than making it seem like the student is simply applying for the city.

Finally, this student clearly demonstrates that they are someone who wants to change the world for the better, but through their personal niche. NYU is looking for people who express this desire to be a changemaker, but oftentimes sweeping statements like “I want to change the world” come across as vague and disingenuous. The essay does mention changing diets and looking to the future, but it is focused within the student’s specific area of interest, making the claim to change the world more determined and authentic.

This essay could be made stronger if there was a bit more personal reflection included. The first paragraph provides a lot of details on the student’s vegetarianism and how it conflicts with her grandmother and her heritage. What it doesn’t include very much of is how the student thinks and feels about her diet being at odds with that of her family. 

Does this student feel they are betraying their heritage by being vegetarian? What emotions do they feel when people criticize vegetarianism? Why did they go vegetarian in the first place? Probing questions like these that get to the emotional core behind the story in the first paragraph would really help to build out this student’s backstory. We want to understand what their emotional responses and reasoning processes look like, so finding ways to include those into an already expositive paragraph would further bolster this essay.

Essay Example #6: NYU

My mother never takes off her Cartier necklace that my father gave her 10 years ago on their anniversary. As a child, I didn’t fully understand this attachment. However, on my 15th birthday, my aunt gifted me a ring, which was uniquely designed and made up of three rings linked together. Wearing it every day and making sure I would never lose it, I didn’t treat it like my easily replaceable childhood necklaces; it was my piece of luxury. This sparked my deep curiosity for the luxury world. The niche strives to provide the finest and most memorable experiences, as equally as my Japanese attention to detail and my French appreciation towards aesthetic beauty. In a constantly shifting environment, I learned that luxury chases timeless excellence.

NYU Stern’s BS in business and a co-concentration in management and marketing will fully immerse me in the business side of luxury fashion that I aim to pursue a future career in. The luxury marketing track, offered only by NYU, will enable me to assemble the most suited classes to reflect my interests. Specifically, NYU Stern’s exciting electives such as The Dynamics of the Fashion Industry seminar and Brand Strategy & Planning will encourage me to develop the skills that I was introduced to and grew keen on when running a virtual sustainable fashion auction.

As someone who has moved around from Paris to Tokyo, to Chicago and now Athens, I thrive in meeting and collaborating with others from diverse backgrounds. The school’s strong global outlook, demonstrated through Stern’s International Business Exchange Program, further sets NYU apart for me, as it is crucial to building essential soft skills. This opportunity allows me to experience new cultural approaches to luxury business which I can bring back with me to New York, and therefore push me to become a well-rounded business student. Similarly, I am excited to take part in the array of student clubs offered, such as the Luxury and Retail Association (LARA), which I learned about after connecting with and talking to current students. Seeing past talks from employers of companies like Conde Nast, I am eager to learn outside of the classroom from future speakers. 

Finding myself in new situations constantly, I always seek new challenges and explorations – to me, it is clear that NYU Stern will push me to create the finest and most unique learning experiences of timeless excellence.

This essay has an amazing introduction paragraph. It doesn’t mention anything about NYU or what this student is planning on studying, which is what makes it so intriguing. The reader doesn’t know where this student is headed after making such a seemingly unrelated statement about jewelry, but we want to find out. 

Not only does this essay immediately capture the reader’s attention, it maintains a succinct and direct tone that helps the reader effortlessly flow from one paragraph to the next. The student chose to include three opportunities at NYU that excite them and fully elaborate on them. This serves as an excellent example of more is less. 

We aren’t bombarded with a laundry list of classes, professors, and clubs the student wants to take. Instead, the student took a focused approach and described why they were excited by each offering they highlighted. Going deeper into a smaller number of opportunities at the college still shows this student did their research, but it allows for their backstory and goals to be discussed in far greater detail.

While this student does a good job of elaborating, they also mention a few key aspects of their personality as throw-away lines, when it would have been great to elaborate further on them. For example, they mention running a virtual sustainable fashion auction (cool!), but don’t provide us with any details on what that actually entails, how they got involved with it, what they enjoyed about it, etc. They also mention moving around a lot in the context of developing a diverse perspective, but they don’t include any emotional insight into what that was like.

Although there are only 400 words available, and you don’t want to spend too much time discussing the past, it would be nice to see just a sentence or two that delves into the details of this student’s background. The fashion auction and moving around clearly had an impact on the student, so we want to know what that was. If they are choosing to include these details, they must be important in the student’s decision to pursue business at NYU, so they shouldn’t be afraid to divulge the emotional significance to the reader.

Essay Example #7: Boston University

Prompt: In no more than 250 words, please tell us why BU is a good fit for you and what specifically has led you to apply for admission.

Boston University’s College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) attracts me because of its support of interdisciplinary study among its wide array of majors. In fact, the CAS now offers a course that combines biology, chemistry, and neuroscience. As I hope to conduct medical research into brain disorders, I plan to pursue all three areas of study. These cross-disciplinary connections at BU will prepare me to do so.

CAS’s undergraduate research program would allow me to work with a mentor, such as Dr. Alice Cronin-Golomb or Dr. Robert M.G. Reinhart related to their research on neurological disorders. With them, I can advance the work I have already completed related to Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). In a summer class at our local university, my partner and I extracted data from fMRI and PET studies and inputted them into a coding program. We then created an indicator map, which we imported into another software program, AFNI, to display significant activity in the brain regions affected by DID. Seeing the representation of our data thrilled me because I knew it could eventually help people who live with DID. I want to experience that feeling again. Successfully analyzing these fMRI and PET studies and learning to code drives me to pursue more research opportunities, and this desire motivates me to study at a university that offers research opportunities to undergraduates. BU’s interdisciplinary approach to psychology and support for independent undergraduate research will optimally prepare me for a career as a neurological researcher.

This student clearly outlines BU-specific resources (the interdisciplinary course and undergrad research program), plus how these resources align with their professional goals (to become a neurological researcher). They do name professors, but since their work clearly relates to the student’s interests, it doesn’t look disingenuous, and shows that the student has done research on their fit with BU. The student also provides background on why they want to pursue research, and shows that they already have experience, which makes their interest in the undergrad research program more concrete.

The only thing missing from this essay is the student’s fit with BU in terms of extracurriculars and social life. “Why This College?” essays should also cover extracurriculars, as colleges are also interested in how you’ll contribute to their community. 

In general, these essays should be academic-leaning (especially if they’re under 250 words), but you should still address some social aspects of the college that appeal to you (we recommend about 70% academics, 30% social, with more or less focus on social aspects depending on the word count). 

Since the student probably already detailed their previous research in their Common App activities section, they could’ve just summarized their research background in one sentence (instead of 78 words, which is 31% of the total word count!), and used that valuable space to talk about a specific social aspect of BU that interests them. 

Essay Example #8: Boston University

Prompt: In no more than 250 words, please tell us why BU is a good fit for you and what specifically has led you to apply for admission. 

I am fascinated by research, though completely uninterested in the disciplines traditionally associated with it, such as STEM fields. I need to find a school that will balance my desire to conduct research with my interest in political science. 

While many schools boast in-depth student research programs for those looking to cure diseases or develop solutions to global warming, few tout their support for humanities research. Additionally, many universities that do allocate funding to social science research typically reserve these monies for graduate students or upperclassmen. BU, with the help of its Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, will allow me to conduct research on the topics that most intrigue me, such as gender disparity in politics, or the relationship between dominant parties in power and the country’s economy and involvement in foreign affairs. Furthermore, I can begin these studies as early as my first year. Not only can I take classes with professors like Sandra McEvoy or Dino Christenson to develop my interests in a classroom setting, but I could also work with one of them to develop new knowledge in the topics that we both enjoy learning about. With this knowledge base and experience conducting studies with top professors in a respected research institution, I will be well-prepared for my future law career. I want to learn in an environment that encourages independent study no matter one’s field of interest or experience, and BU’s support of intellectual curiosity for all of its students makes it a perfect fit for me.

This student knows exactly what they want, and they’re not afraid to state it bluntly. Their intro paragraph is totally honest about their interests (or lack of interest), and we immediately understand one of their main college goals: to conduct political science research.

The student mentions a specific resource, the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, as well as an alignment with BU’s value of encouraging independent study in all fields. Showing alignment with a specific value of the university is a great way to take your essay to the next level.

This essay shows us that the student would be a great fit for BU and would take advantage of its research opportunities.

The writer mentions some of their research interests, but doesn’t explain the motivation behind them. We don’t actually learn very much about the student themself, which is a common flaw of “Why This College?” essays. The essay would’ve been stronger if they’d explained why they’re interested in “gender disparity in politics, or the relationship between dominant parties in power and the country’s economy and involvement in foreign affairs.” For example, maybe they feel strongly about abortion rights and are upset about the way men have been legislating women’s rights.

The student also names two professors whose classes they’d like to take and with whom they’d like to do research, but we aren’t told which classes they’re interested in, or which topics they could cover together. You want to avoid “name-dropping” professors without context in your essay. If the student shared the names of specific classes or research topics and why they’re interested in them, that would’ve strengthened their essay.

Essay Example #9: Tufts

Prompt: Why Tufts? (100 words) 

When Deanne, Tufts’ admissions counselor, visited my school, she immediately caught my attention by emphasizing Tufts’ diverse yet unified campus. Tufts’ inclusive definition of diversity goes beyond merely recruiting students from a variety of backgrounds. Tufts seeks to integrate these categories of diversity and pushes its students to learn from one another. One such intersectional program that attracts me is CAFE (Conversation, Action, Faith, and Education). By joining CAFE, a community that promotes interfaith education, I will learn from my peers, become more understanding of other religious backgrounds, and apply this broader understanding to my academic work at Tufts.

It’s hard to write a “Why This College?” essay in 100 words. This essay does a good job sticking to one unique element of Tufts—its intersectionality. Since Tufts also cares about demonstrated interest, it’s great that the student also mentioned speaking with an admissions counselor. 

We unfortunately don’t learn very much about the student from this essay. Why do they care about diversity and interfaith programs? How does this relate to their academic and career goals? While the word count is super short, they could’ve cut these lines and jumped right into the specific resource they’re interested in: Tufts’ inclusive definition of diversity goes beyond merely recruiting students from a variety of backgrounds. Tufts seeks to integrate these categories of diversity and pushes its students to learn from one another.

Here’s an example of a stronger version of this essay:

When a Tufts admissions counselor visited my school, she immediately caught my attention by emphasizing Tufts’ diverse yet unified campus. As a Muslim hoping to go into International Relations, I want to attend a school that not only recruits diverse students, but pushes them to learn from one another. I hope to join intersectional programs such as CAFE (Conversation, Action, Faith, and Education). By joining this community that promotes interfaith education, I will gain the necessary perspective and compassion to become a human rights lawyer in countries with religious conflict, such as my homeland Azerbaijan.

Essay Example #10: Tufts

Prompt: Why Tufts? (100 words)

Someday I hope to conduct medical research in developing countries; Tufts attracts me because of its wide array of majors it offers and support for undergraduate research. To understand the human brain, I hope to study biology, neuroscience, and psychology. In addition to outstanding faculty in each of these areas, Tufts also organizes initiatives including the International Research Program. Through this program, I would work with other students and faculty members on an international project related to brain diseases. This opportunity will give me a taste of my future career and help me narrow the scope of my later studies.

This essay does a better job of sharing the student’s goals with us compared to the previous Tufts essay. We learn that the applicant is interested in medical research in developing countries on brain diseases, and that Tufts has a program to support international research.

The essay still mentions some resources that could apply to many schools, which is not an effective use of the tiny word count. For example, they say: “Tufts attracts me because of its wide array of majors it offers and support for undergraduate research” and they mention the “outstanding faculty” in the fields they plan to study.

They also don’t tell us their motivation behind studying brain diseases abroad, and it feels like there’s a significant story there. Giving some background would’ve further strengthened their essay.

Finally, they mention that they still need to narrow the scope of their studies; while it’s fine to be undecided on your career and majors, you don’t need to spend your precious word count saying that in your essay. They could’ve instead shared a couple potential avenues they’re considering.

Here’s what the student could’ve written instead:

Outcomes for schizophrenia patients are better in developing countries than in developed ones. I hope to research the reasons behind this and improve the treatment options in the US for the cousin I grew up with. In college, I want to study biology, neuroscience, and psychology. Tufts attracts me because of its unique interdisciplinary BS in Cognitive and Brain Science and its International Research Program. Through this program, I could do the research I’ve dreamt of doing with a faculty member and other students, preparing me for my future career as either a researcher or clinician.

Essay Example #11: Georgia Tech

Prompt: Why do you want to study your chosen major specifically at Georgia Tech? (300 words)

Climate change is a human rights issue.  

There the headline was, screaming on my phone screen. I think about those suffering from a lack of clean water. I think about those suffering from a lack of clean air. 

I often think back to that headline – it’s what drives my passion for environmental engineering. As an environmental engineer, I can mitigate air pollution and design water treatment systems that address the water injustices that people face. However, it’s not just about creating a technology that cleans water; it’s about changing people’s lives. New technologies can make a lasting difference in humanitarian issues worldwide; Georgia Tech’s research on creating a toilet that turns human waste into clean water for those in need of improved sanitation aligns perfectly with my interests.   

At Georgia Tech, through the student-led organization, Engineers for a Sustainable World and the InVenture Prize, I can translate the knowledge gained from my classes into a concrete vision. I can design and implement hands-on sustainability projects around Atlanta and invent a water sanitation system for the on-site acquisition of clean water. 

Georgia Tech can also provide me with ample research opportunities, such as the broad area of Healthy Communities in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. I can further pursue my interest in developing solutions to deliver clean water while welcoming new areas of inquiry. An area I would like to explore would be the controlling of dangerous matter in the air to reduce health hazards; reducing the impact of climate change is of utmost importance to me. 

Studying environmental engineering at Georgia Tech would well prepare me to develop solutions to climate-related issues. With the countless opportunities that Georgia Tech has to offer, I know there is nowhere else where I can receive a better environmental engineering education.

What the Essay Did Well l

This essay begins with an attention-grabbing statement that leaves the reader wondering how this will relate to the student’s interest in Georgia Tech. They then transition seamlessly into how climate change and human rights motivate their desire to become an environmental engineer.

The student mentions several resources specific to Georgia Tech that would help them achieve their goals, such as the research on the toilet turning waste into water, Engineers for a Sustainable World, InVenture Prize, and Healthy Communities research. It’s clear that they did their research and have reflected on their fit with the campus community.

They end the essay explicitly stating that Georgia Tech is the best place for them to grow, and the reader is certainly convinced of this by the end.

This essay is quite strong, so there’s not much that the student could’ve improved. That said, there is one sentence that is a bit awkwardly worded: New technologies can make a lasting difference in humanitarian issues worldwide; Georgia Tech’s research on creating a toilet that turns human waste into clean water for those in need of improved sanitation aligns perfectly with my interests.

Instead, the student could’ve written:

New technologies can make a lasting difference in humanitarian issues worldwide; Georgia Tech aligns with this value of mine and is even developing a toilet that turns human waste into clean water for those who need improved sanitation.

Essay Example #12: Georgia Tech

From my first Java project, a somewhat primitive graphing calculator, I realized that CS unlocks a different way of thinking. My brain races at speeds it seldom touches with other subjects. Every part of CS, from conceptualizing a plan to executing a solution, is another piece of a puzzle I’m eager to solve and affords the most opportunities for creative problem-solving and application. 

“Progress and Service,” Georgia Tech’s motto, tells me there’s no better place to explore my curiosity and deepen my CS skills while simultaneously helping make the world a better place, my ultimate goal for a college education. 

In the classroom, I look forward to GT’s threads program, where I can tailor the curriculum to suit my career choice after exposing myself to all technical aspects of CS.

I’ll apply my specialized learning with Tech’s fascinating research opportunities. Professor Pandarinth’s brain-machine interfacing software means a lot to me. My uncle passed away from a freak accident after extensive paralysis because potential treatments were unaffordable. Exploring this revolutionary brain decoding software wouldn’t just involve me in cutting-edge artificial intelligence technology research, I’d be personally driven to ensure its success and accessibility. 

I’m at my best building towards tangible results. I learned this on my robotics team using design skills to create a technically complex robot that tackles anything from shooting balls to hanging on a balance beam. I’m excited to expand my skills on the RoboJackets team, applying my career interests to build ferocious BattleBots and autonomous race robots that compete on the Indy Speedway, two events that sound ridiculously fun. 

Of course, I can’t skip hackathons. These competitions molded my interest in coding so I want to give back to Georgia Tech’s Hack-Community by planning HackGT and the Catalyst Mentorship program as a member of the Hexlabs team. 

The student’s passion for CS shines through this essay. They explain what they love about the subject (the problem-solving aspect) and they share that they hope to make a difference through CS, demonstrating alignment with Tech’s motto of  “progress and service”.

It’s clear that this student has done their research, mentioning specific academic programs, research, and clubs. We can see that they’d be greatly engaged with the campus community.

Finally, this essay is also down-to-earth. The student doesn’t try to use impressive vocabulary or formal language. In fact, they even describe some extracurriculars as “ridiculously fun.” While you shouldn’t get too informal in your essays, this student’s casual tone in this context makes them feel more approachable and more excited about the prospect of going to Georgia Tech.

This essay has a couple sentences that are confusing to read:

Every part of CS, from conceptualizing a plan to executing a solution, is another piece of a puzzle I’m eager to solve and affords the most opportunities for creative problem-solving and application.

This sentence could’ve been broken up and rewritten as:

Every part of CS, from conceptualizing a plan to executing a solution, is another piece of a puzzle I’m eager to solve. For me, the field affords the most opportunities for creative problem-solving and application.

This sentence also uses incorrect grammar—the comma should be replaced with a semicolon:

Exploring this revolutionary brain decoding software wouldn’t just involve me in cutting-edge artificial intelligence technology research, I’d be personally driven to ensure its success and accessibility. 

These details would make the essay more readable.

The organization of the essay could also be reworked. The student mentions Tech’s motto of “progress and service,” but doesn’t follow up until later with an example of how they’d use CS for the greater good. Using CS for social good isn’t ultimately the theme of their essay, so this section would’ve been better placed at the end of the paragraph about AI technology research, or at the very end of the essay. The essay actually ends abruptly, so placing the section at the end might’ve tied it up nicely, if the student could’ve placed more emphasis on how they plan to use CS to improve society.

Do you want feedback on your “Why This College” essays? After rereading your essays countless times, it can be difficult to evaluate your writing objectively. That’s why we created our free Peer Essay Review tool , where you can get a free review of your essay from another student. You can also improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays. 

If you want a college admissions expert to review your essay, advisors on CollegeVine have helped students refine their writing and submit successful applications to top schools. Find the right advisor for you to improve your chances of getting into your dream school!

Related CollegeVine Blog Posts

Should I Use “I”?

What this handout is about.

This handout is about determining when to use first person pronouns (“I”, “we,” “me,” “us,” “my,” and “our”) and personal experience in academic writing. “First person” and “personal experience” might sound like two ways of saying the same thing, but first person and personal experience can work in very different ways in your writing. You might choose to use “I” but not make any reference to your individual experiences in a particular paper. Or you might include a brief description of an experience that could help illustrate a point you’re making without ever using the word “I.” So whether or not you should use first person and personal experience are really two separate questions, both of which this handout addresses. It also offers some alternatives if you decide that either “I” or personal experience isn’t appropriate for your project. If you’ve decided that you do want to use one of them, this handout offers some ideas about how to do so effectively, because in many cases using one or the other might strengthen your writing.

Expectations about academic writing

Students often arrive at college with strict lists of writing rules in mind. Often these are rather strict lists of absolutes, including rules both stated and unstated:

• Each essay should have exactly five paragraphs.
• Don’t begin a sentence with “and” or “because.”
• Never include personal opinion.
• Never use “I” in essays.

We get these ideas primarily from teachers and other students. Often these ideas are derived from good advice but have been turned into unnecessarily strict rules in our minds. The problem is that overly strict rules about writing can prevent us, as writers, from being flexible enough to learn to adapt to the writing styles of different fields, ranging from the sciences to the humanities, and different kinds of writing projects, ranging from reviews to research.

So when it suits your purpose as a scholar, you will probably need to break some of the old rules, particularly the rules that prohibit first person pronouns and personal experience. Although there are certainly some instructors who think that these rules should be followed (so it is a good idea to ask directly), many instructors in all kinds of fields are finding reason to depart from these rules. Avoiding “I” can lead to awkwardness and vagueness, whereas using it in your writing can improve style and clarity. Using personal experience, when relevant, can add concreteness and even authority to writing that might otherwise be vague and impersonal. Because college writing situations vary widely in terms of stylistic conventions, tone, audience, and purpose, the trick is deciphering the conventions of your writing context and determining how your purpose and audience affect the way you write. The rest of this handout is devoted to strategies for figuring out when to use “I” and personal experience.

Effective uses of “I”:

In many cases, using the first person pronoun can improve your writing, by offering the following benefits:

• Assertiveness: In some cases you might wish to emphasize agency (who is doing what), as for instance if you need to point out how valuable your particular project is to an academic discipline or to claim your unique perspective or argument.
• Clarity: Because trying to avoid the first person can lead to awkward constructions and vagueness, using the first person can improve your writing style.
• Positioning yourself in the essay: In some projects, you need to explain how your research or ideas build on or depart from the work of others, in which case you’ll need to say “I,” “we,” “my,” or “our”; if you wish to claim some kind of authority on the topic, first person may help you do so.

Deciding whether “I” will help your style

Here is an example of how using the first person can make the writing clearer and more assertive:

Original example:

In studying American popular culture of the 1980s, the question of to what degree materialism was a major characteristic of the cultural milieu was explored.

Better example using first person:

In our study of American popular culture of the 1980s, we explored the degree to which materialism characterized the cultural milieu.

The original example sounds less emphatic and direct than the revised version; using “I” allows the writers to avoid the convoluted construction of the original and clarifies who did what.

Here is an example in which alternatives to the first person would be more appropriate:

As I observed the communication styles of first-year Carolina women, I noticed frequent use of non-verbal cues.

Better example:

A study of the communication styles of first-year Carolina women revealed frequent use of non-verbal cues.

In the original example, using the first person grounds the experience heavily in the writer’s subjective, individual perspective, but the writer’s purpose is to describe a phenomenon that is in fact objective or independent of that perspective. Avoiding the first person here creates the desired impression of an observed phenomenon that could be reproduced and also creates a stronger, clearer statement.

Here’s another example in which an alternative to first person works better:

As I was reading this study of medieval village life, I noticed that social class tended to be clearly defined.

This study of medieval village life reveals that social class tended to be clearly defined.

Although you may run across instructors who find the casual style of the original example refreshing, they are probably rare. The revised version sounds more academic and renders the statement more assertive and direct.

Here’s a final example:

I think that Aristotle’s ethical arguments are logical and readily applicable to contemporary cases, or at least it seems that way to me.

Better example

Aristotle’s ethical arguments are logical and readily applicable to contemporary cases.

In this example, there is no real need to announce that that statement about Aristotle is your thought; this is your paper, so readers will assume that the ideas in it are yours.

Determining whether to use “I” according to the conventions of the academic field

Which fields allow “I”?

The rules for this are changing, so it’s always best to ask your instructor if you’re not sure about using first person. But here are some general guidelines.

Sciences: In the past, scientific writers avoided the use of “I” because scientists often view the first person as interfering with the impression of objectivity and impersonality they are seeking to create. But conventions seem to be changing in some cases—for instance, when a scientific writer is describing a project she is working on or positioning that project within the existing research on the topic. Check with your science instructor to find out whether it’s o.k. to use “I” in their class.

Social Sciences: Some social scientists try to avoid “I” for the same reasons that other scientists do. But first person is becoming more commonly accepted, especially when the writer is describing their project or perspective.

Humanities: Ask your instructor whether you should use “I.” The purpose of writing in the humanities is generally to offer your own analysis of language, ideas, or a work of art. Writers in these fields tend to value assertiveness and to emphasize agency (who’s doing what), so the first person is often—but not always—appropriate. Sometimes writers use the first person in a less effective way, preceding an assertion with “I think,” “I feel,” or “I believe” as if such a phrase could replace a real defense of an argument. While your audience is generally interested in your perspective in the humanities fields, readers do expect you to fully argue, support, and illustrate your assertions. Personal belief or opinion is generally not sufficient in itself; you will need evidence of some kind to convince your reader.

Other writing situations: If you’re writing a speech, use of the first and even the second person (“you”) is generally encouraged because these personal pronouns can create a desirable sense of connection between speaker and listener and can contribute to the sense that the speaker is sincere and involved in the issue. If you’re writing a resume, though, avoid the first person; describe your experience, education, and skills without using a personal pronoun (for example, under “Experience” you might write “Volunteered as a peer counselor”).

A note on the second person “you”:

In situations where your intention is to sound conversational and friendly because it suits your purpose, as it does in this handout intended to offer helpful advice, or in a letter or speech, “you” might help to create just the sense of familiarity you’re after. But in most academic writing situations, “you” sounds overly conversational, as for instance in a claim like “when you read the poem ‘The Wasteland,’ you feel a sense of emptiness.” In this case, the “you” sounds overly conversational. The statement would read better as “The poem ‘The Wasteland’ creates a sense of emptiness.” Academic writers almost always use alternatives to the second person pronoun, such as “one,” “the reader,” or “people.”

Personal experience in academic writing

The question of whether personal experience has a place in academic writing depends on context and purpose. In papers that seek to analyze an objective principle or data as in science papers, or in papers for a field that explicitly tries to minimize the effect of the researcher’s presence such as anthropology, personal experience would probably distract from your purpose. But sometimes you might need to explicitly situate your position as researcher in relation to your subject of study. Or if your purpose is to present your individual response to a work of art, to offer examples of how an idea or theory might apply to life, or to use experience as evidence or a demonstration of an abstract principle, personal experience might have a legitimate role to play in your academic writing. Using personal experience effectively usually means keeping it in the service of your argument, as opposed to letting it become an end in itself or take over the paper.

It’s also usually best to keep your real or hypothetical stories brief, but they can strengthen arguments in need of concrete illustrations or even just a little more vitality.

Here are some examples of effective ways to incorporate personal experience in academic writing:

• Anecdotes: In some cases, brief examples of experiences you’ve had or witnessed may serve as useful illustrations of a point you’re arguing or a theory you’re evaluating. For instance, in philosophical arguments, writers often use a real or hypothetical situation to illustrate abstract ideas and principles.
• References to your own experience can explain your interest in an issue or even help to establish your authority on a topic.
• Some specific writing situations, such as application essays, explicitly call for discussion of personal experience.

Here are some suggestions about including personal experience in writing for specific fields:

Philosophy: In philosophical writing, your purpose is generally to reconstruct or evaluate an existing argument, and/or to generate your own. Sometimes, doing this effectively may involve offering a hypothetical example or an illustration. In these cases, you might find that inventing or recounting a scenario that you’ve experienced or witnessed could help demonstrate your point. Personal experience can play a very useful role in your philosophy papers, as long as you always explain to the reader how the experience is related to your argument. (See our handout on writing in philosophy for more information.)

Religion: Religion courses might seem like a place where personal experience would be welcomed. But most religion courses take a cultural, historical, or textual approach, and these generally require objectivity and impersonality. So although you probably have very strong beliefs or powerful experiences in this area that might motivate your interest in the field, they shouldn’t supplant scholarly analysis. But ask your instructor, as it is possible that they are interested in your personal experiences with religion, especially in less formal assignments such as response papers. (See our handout on writing in religious studies for more information.)

Literature, Music, Fine Arts, and Film: Writing projects in these fields can sometimes benefit from the inclusion of personal experience, as long as it isn’t tangential. For instance, your annoyance over your roommate’s habits might not add much to an analysis of “Citizen Kane.” However, if you’re writing about Ridley Scott’s treatment of relationships between women in the movie “Thelma and Louise,” some reference your own observations about these relationships might be relevant if it adds to your analysis of the film. Personal experience can be especially appropriate in a response paper, or in any kind of assignment that asks about your experience of the work as a reader or viewer. Some film and literature scholars are interested in how a film or literary text is received by different audiences, so a discussion of how a particular viewer or reader experiences or identifies with the piece would probably be appropriate. (See our handouts on writing about fiction , art history , and drama for more information.)

Women’s Studies: Women’s Studies classes tend to be taught from a feminist perspective, a perspective which is generally interested in the ways in which individuals experience gender roles. So personal experience can often serve as evidence for your analytical and argumentative papers in this field. This field is also one in which you might be asked to keep a journal, a kind of writing that requires you to apply theoretical concepts to your experiences.

History: If you’re analyzing a historical period or issue, personal experience is less likely to advance your purpose of objectivity. However, some kinds of historical scholarship do involve the exploration of personal histories. So although you might not be referencing your own experience, you might very well be discussing other people’s experiences as illustrations of their historical contexts. (See our handout on writing in history for more information.)

Sciences: Because the primary purpose is to study data and fixed principles in an objective way, personal experience is less likely to have a place in this kind of writing. Often, as in a lab report, your goal is to describe observations in such a way that a reader could duplicate the experiment, so the less extra information, the better. Of course, if you’re working in the social sciences, case studies—accounts of the personal experiences of other people—are a crucial part of your scholarship. (See our handout on  writing in the sciences for more information.)

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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