The Vocation of Writing

I stumbled into writing when I was in sixth grade. I knew someone my age who had begun writing poems. And people loved what she wrote. I thought to myself, “That doesn’t look very hard.” So I did it. Of course, I wouldn’t let people read what I wrote. But I wrote anyway. I simply expressed myself and wrote down my ideas.

By the time I got to high school I had become more confident and I ventured into writing short stories. I wrote them even when they weren’t required. My classmates stayed up late in the night to discuss boys and clothes and outings. I stayed up late and wrote stories. And when I was brave enough, I would show them to my friends. And because they were my friends, they all said that I was a good writer.

I would feel flattered when I would see the reaction on their faces when they read what I wrote. One particularly emotional friend would even cry. Of course, when I look back on the stories that I wrote I realize that they weren’t good at all – just sentimental stories, attempts at tapping into a more dramatic existence.

But it was at that point that I began to see that words could have power. In the same manner that books touched my life and became a part of my inner world, my words could touch others too. I was young then and still unaware of the difficult world of publishers and book agents so I began to dream. I dreamed of being a writer, a novelist.

But by the time I was in college I had realized that although I dreamed of being a writer, I had no fire in my belly to actually pursue the career. I liked writing but I had no desire to work on my craft. Being exposed to the great writers made me think that it was too much work. And I began to see that perhaps a career in writing just wasn’t for me.

When the opportunity to write a column came about, I decided to give it a try. Essays and non-fiction weren’t exactly my strong suit but I thought it would be good for me if I was forced to write. All the great writers always said that the only way to get better at writing was to keep writing. And so I wrote.

Twelve years later and I’m still writing. A while back I had already begun to see that writing is more than just a skill, more than just a talent, more than just an art. It can very well be, as one writer once said, a vocation – an inner call that I commit myself to answering, one that in some way shapes who I am and how I relate with others. The other callings in my life are much more significant of course but even then, the vocation to write is still important to me.

Considering writing as my vocation means that I am fully aware of the obligations it sets on me – external ones like meeting deadlines and following syntax and grammar, but internal ones too like expressing myself truthfully and sharing my inmost thoughts. And most of the time, it also means that I do it without reward. Which is not to say I do not get a writer’s fee. But ultimately, a writer’s greatest reward is that knowledge that a) someone (other than one’s editor and family) reads what was written and b) what was written has made an impact to the reader.

Many times, that knowledge is denied me. As I am no J.K. Rowling, I do not have legions of fans following my every Tweet. But I’m okay with that.  I am deeply grateful when occasionally people come and tell me that they like what I wrote or that it struck a chord with them. But even if they didn’t, I would still write.

I write because I feel I have something to say. I write because a part of me feels that someone out there might find it useful. I write because I want to contribute something positive out there in the world. But more than that, I write, well, because I feel God calls me to write.

I will never know, I suppose, the extent of the impact my writing has on others, if it has an impact at all. But perhaps that is the nature of answering any kind of call, our task is merely to answer the call, not necessarily find out the result of our answer. For in the answering, we find that those of us who answer, are the ones whose lives are most changed.