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Writing
From the Real World
Why Do You Write?
-Victor
D. Infante
I’ve
been thinking a lot about my friend Mike.
Mike’s one of the best people I know: a
talented writer with several unpublished
Science Fiction novels and little ego about
the whole thing; a guy who’s worked hard
all his life to do good in the world, who’s
supported several ecological and cultural
diversity causes, who speaks several languages,
including hard ones like Japanese and some
Native American languages, and is one of
my favorite persons to just sit around and
B.S. with.
He’s
one of the few people I’ve met who should
be in this world, and he’s dying.
I’m
angry right now. The rage is sitting there
at the base of my neck, waiting for me to
let it loose. I’m angry because, in all
likelihood, I’m about to lose a friend to
cancer, and the enormity of that looming
loss is frightening.
I’ve
lost people before: my father was a victim
of random street crime; one friend was murdered
in her sleep, another committed suicide
to escape abuse. One friend died on a motorcycle,
another of old age. The list goes on. All
of them are a piece of the framework of
my consciousness. Sometimes, I feel like
all of them are hovering outside my window.
When
Mike e-mailed to tell me what was up, I
couldn’t feel a thing. I read the e-mail
over and over. Then I closed it, and walked
away from the computer. I couldn’t even
register the enormity of it. The next morning,
I read it again. And again. And again. I
thought of a Grant Morrison story, where
he mentions a man who turned his cancer
cells into familiars. I e-mailed Mike back,
and proceeded to cry for what felt like
hours.
And
even as I pray to God for whatever chemotherapeutic
or holistic remedies can avail themselves,
I can feel the loss of him simmering, and
it is almost too much to bear.
And
all I can do is write. Snap ideas into sentences,
sentences into paragraphs, construct a world
where at least part of him will live forever.
So
tell me, why do you write?
I
won’t speak for anyone else, but I write
because I’m angry. There’s a deep-seated,
burning rage in my gut, a rage like a Colorado
wildfire. The kind of rage I can’t extinguish,
that I can only contain at all through the
act of writing. No, I’m not entirely sure
how that works, either. All I know is that,
even on the best of days, I’m often only
one sentence away from it. Like, if the
noise of typing dissipates, I’ll ignite
like dry wood.
Some
days, I feel like as long as I can keep
typing, I can keep the people I’ve lost
alive just a little bit longer. Like they’re
not really gone if I can formulate one more
sentence. Some days.
But
even that’s probably not the entire truth.
I don’t even know what the entirAe truth
is, but there’s something compelling about
taking this rage and harnessing it to forge
something out of insubstantial words that’s
truly beautiful. Because within all that
anger and heartache and loss is a reminder
of what it means to be alive.
(Victor
D. Infante is a regular contributor to OC
Weekly and The Worcester InCity Times, and
is seeking representation for his screenplay,
“Nihilist Chic.” Visit him on the web at
<http://www.quantumredhead.com/victor.>)
(c)
Victor D. Infante 2002
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