Michael Clerizo – Writer

Why do we write?  Lots of reasons.  To tell stories.  To express ourselves.  To help us think: writing often clears the mind, engenders new ideas and unexpected perspectives.  Writing is a way of learning.   

All of those reasons apply to me but there is something else.  I enjoy writing.

When I was a kid completing jigsaw puzzles was one of my favorite things.  The fun started when I opened the box and turned it upside down and watched all the pieces fall onto a table. Gradually I assembled the pieces into the puzzle pictured on the box. 

For me that’s what writing is like.  I have a dictionary on my desk. Sometimes I imagine turning the dictionary upside down.  I gaze with wonder as a flood of words pours onto my desk.  Then just like fitting the pieces of the puzzle together I manipulate the words into phrases, sentences and paragraphs.  Yes, at times that is frustrating just like doing puzzles. Often though writing is enjoyable and delivers a sense of achievement – at least for a while. 

I don’t know if other writers feel this way, but I like my writing for a few days then the dread oozes in slowly and mercilessly.  It overwhelms and almost consumes me.   I think:  Did I really write that?  I am useless. What made me think I could write?  I’ll never lift a pen or peck at a keyboard again.  Always though the dread evaporates and putting together the next sentence starts.

There is another reason I write: reading.  I have always loved to read, especially books.  Often I read two or three books at the same time.  Some books are morning reads others are for the afternoon or evening. 

To me books are not inanimate objects, they’re alive.  Some books that I have read several times I regard as friends that helped me through difficult times in my life such as the death of a loved one or a failure to achieve a long sought after goal or the collapse of a once promising project.

My father instilled my love of reading.  He read to me from the time when I was a toddler. When I reached an age at which reading the books my father liked to read – mostly history – became possible we read to each other.  To this day anything I write I read out loud.

I also read my work out loud because to me writing is musical.  The best prose writing has a rhythm, a beat like any piece of music.  I am not saying my writing achieves this rarefied state often. But it is what I strive for and sometimes I do hit the right notes.