Why We Write
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That's a bit of a bad pun but while talking with someone earlier today, I realized just how much I write. When I was in high school, I wanted to be a science fiction writer; I penned a number of really bad short stories, and submitted several of them to publishers, in hopes that I would become the next Isaac Asimov. Unsurprisingly, that never happened, although it's still a hope kicking around in the back of my head that someday, I'll be able to publish a science fiction story somewhere.
In college, I began to maintain a blog, which is what this has ended up being. I've culled a lot of the older entries, over the past couple of years, I've noticed that I've begun to refine my writing style, and the topics that I write about. This blog, which was originally more of a personal project, has gone towards something that is more analytical, rather than personal. This is something that I've noticed change over the past couple of years, influenced by several people whom I've come into contact with socially and through school.
I've begun to write again for my music blog, Carry You Away, something that I had backed off from because of problems that I had with the music industry, but also the fans of the music that I posted up. Writing there turned from a personal pleasure towards something that was more along the lines of regurgitating press releases that I received from publicists, pushing things on me that I had no interest in writing about, and over the past couple of weeks, while reviewing several albums from bands that I did like, I remembered just how much I enjoyed doing this, and how I was able to help them.
Another reason why I pulled back from CYA was my recent addition to the staff of io9 as their 'Research Fellow', which I have been enjoying immensely. There, I've written a number of articles about subjects that I really enjoyed: What a Stormtrooper Is Made Of , Stalking NASA, Trilobites: The Greatest Survivors in Earth's History, The History (and Future) of Commercial Space Flight, Angels and Aliens Meet on Your February Bookshelf, Nine SciFi Books that Deserve to be Films, Tragedy for NASA's Climate Science Satellite Program and China Lands on the Moon - Sort of, with more to come. This site has proven to be a fantastic outlet for some of my interests, such as space exploration, science fiction and history. Some of my articles have received tens of thousands of hits, with hundreds of comments, which is both facinating and gratifying.
Looking over these places, I've wondered why I like to write - it's a lot more than I generally would have expected, and I suspect that it's a bit more than the average person. Coupled with my master's work with my Military History degree, there's certainly a lot there. I like to tell people about things. I guess blogging is one of the natural extensions of how I can do this, because I've never been the most comfortable around people, and it takes me a little while to really warm up to people, with a few very rare exceptions. Writing, I've found, is a way for me to get ideas down on paper (virtual or otherwise), in a logical fashion, and is a means for me to really examine things, for all their flaws, whether it is looking at a new album, a book, news, history or any other random idea that I've got bouncing around. In a way, it's a form of teaching, I guess, which is something that I would really like to do, especially in the academic history fields, which is what I'm mainly striving towards for my Master's. Already, I'm beginning to start thinking about my thesis, as well as extended work on the Norwich University D-Day paper that I did for my Senior thesis as an undergrad, not to mention my Byron Clark paper, which deals with local history during the progressive era.
It's fun to tell people about new things, and I like to think that I can help open people's minds, turn them to new things or see things in a different light than they had before.Thinking back to my conversation earlier today, I do write a lot. I guess it just comes naturally.
