Zelda's Inferno exercise: from >Writing Down the Bones: why do I write?
Why do I write? I write because if I don't it nags at me, like not brushing your teeth before going to bed. Or maybe more like flossing, the old joke about mental floss, writing is working that piece of gunk, that sesame seed or bit of corn, from betweeny our teeth.
I write to save all sentient beings, stock bullshit Zen answer but still a truth nearby. Like Pirsig's idea that the real motorcycle you're working on is yourself, so the poem. I write to write myself into being.
I write because it's Sunday night coffee and vegetarian sushi rolls (one inari, one shitake) and the sun has just gone down and it feels like rain soon, cooling from a lovely mid-April day into another one of those multi-day April showers. I write to make the May flowers.
I write because the stage is a safe place to be, lesson learned as a child -- the bully cannot get you when all eyes are on you. So be an actor, be a singer, be a poet, still running from the kid who punched me in the gut when I was seven.
I write because there's nothing better than the flow when it comes, when you precipitate the truth out of nothingness and on to the page. Sex is not better, nor zazen, nor LSD or whiskey or cannabis or coca.
I write because everyone must know, must be made to know, what I know, what I see, the connections, the implications. Because I am course am right! And the sooner everyone sees that and does things my way, the better off we'll all be.
I write because if I don't then I am ordinary, mundane. I write to leave a mark, graffiti on human civilization.
I write to make the voices in my head more audible. I write to help build consensus in my mental committee. (No! I write to drown out the voices in my head! It's hierarchical imposition by the verbal mind over the rest of the brain. And the others will take it no more!) And so the dialog continues.