Why Do Writers Write?

This morning during a meandering ramble through the ever-growing thicket of the blogosphere, I ran across the rather strange term: 'hyperbolic understatement' -- and I thought, 'Now how in the world can such a figure of speech exist?' "This," I exclaimed, "is one of them there oxymorons."

Here is an example of the contrast between the two:
Hyperbole: The car was so fast I heard a sonic boom.
Understatement: The cars drove at a fair clip.

Researching this phenomenon in the hope of untangling my self-induced quandary, I found a poem that illustrates 'hyperbolic understatement' --

Afternoon in School: The Last Lesson
by D.H. Lawrence

When will the bell ring, and end this weariness?
How long have they tugged the leash, and strained apart
My pack of unruly hounds: I cannot start
Them again on a quarry of knowledge they hate to hunt,
I can haul them and urge them no more.
No more can I endure to bear the brunt
Of the books that lie out on the desks: a full three score
Of several insults of blotted pages and scrawl
Of slovenly work that they have offered me.
I am sick, and tired more than any thrall
Upon the woodstacks working weariedly.

And shall I take
The last dear fuel and heap it on my soul
Till I rouse my will like a fire to consume
Their dross of indifference, and burn the scroll
Of their insults in punishment? - I will not!
I will not waste myself to embers for them,
Not all for them shall the fires of my life be hot,
For myself a heap of ashes of weariness, till sleep
Shall have raked the embers clear: I will keep
Some of my strength for myself, for if I should sell
It all for them, I should hate them -
- I will sit and wait for the bell.

I read that this poem illustrates the finesse of hyperbolic understatement. The speaker paradoxically exaggerates the images throughout the poem to understate the importance of dedicating his life to the education of youth.

My goodness. We live and we learn.

. . .

At times I wonder why it is that I keep writing. After all, even after long hours of tapping away at the keyboard I usually find that the stuff I've composed is not worth a diddly-damn. Most of my seemingly brilliant thoughts put into words are no more than a smudged and faded carbon copy, a weak repetition of those same thoughts earlier penned by other writers, their's always done so much more expertly than are my own.

So, knowing that, why do I write?

Grace Paley said: "You can't write without a lot of pressure. Sometimes the pressure comes from anger, which then changes into a pressure to write. It's not so much a matter of getting distance as simply a translation. I felt a lot of pressure writing some of those stories about women. Writers are lucky because when they're angry, the anger -- by habit almost -- I wouldn't say transcends but becomes an acute pressure to write, to tell. Some guy, he's angry, he wants to take a poke at someone -- or he kicks a can, or sets fire to the house, or hits his wife, or the wife smacks the kid. Then again, it's not always violent. Some people go out and run for three hours. Some people go shopping. The pressure from anger is an energy that can be violent or useful or useless.

. . .

The blog WHY WE WRITE features a series of essays by prominent -- and not so prominent -- TV and Film writers… and by people who hope someday to call themselves writers.

. . .

Jum Harrison wrote 10 books between the ages of 60 and 70 alone. He is two years older than I am.

Author of Legends of the Fall

I hope my friend Anthony is reading this.

__________

"They say that there are 90 billion galaxies in the universe. That's 15 galaxies for each person on earth. Who am I as an old geezer in Montana to say what's possible?"
--Jim Harrison