Why Write?
Curiosity may have killed the cat (poor kitty!), but it invigorates me. How about you? I may have learned curiosity from my father, Morton Eisenberg. Or it might be hard-wired in my DNA. Who knows?
I do know this: I find it fun and revealing to learn from students.
I ask students their “why.”
Why have they started playing piano?
Why have they started painting?
Why have they started acting, or being on Model UN or Robotics teams?
There are so many subjects and skills we can study on YouTube or in school, so many ways we can spend the 24 hours we get each day.
So this is my “why”– Why I Love to Write and Love to Teach Writing.
If you’ve read this far, you are likely curious to hear my answer, but you might also be suspicious, as you sit in your brown leather armchair in your living room or in a wooden desk chair in Starbucks.
Imagine yourself sitting here…
Perhaps you are thinking: Why should I care about your thoughts on writing when an Artificial Intelligence (AI) program like ChatGPT can write for me?
Joan Didion succinctly explains my thoughts on writing:
“Had I been blessed with even limited access to my own mind there would have been no reason to write. I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.” –Joan Didion
Even more succinctly: here is a line from “The End of the Essay” by Hua Hsu:
“The way we write shapes our thinking.”
The reverse is also true—the way we think shapes our writing.
My writing –maybe most people’s writing — starts out shapeless, chaotic, as the page is a bucket for random thoughts ping-ponging around my brain. And for me, the ping-ponging would go on for a very long time if I didn’t stop and try to grab a thought and stick it on my paper.
It’s like there are green and pink post-its with a line of my thoughts flying around me in the room—I grab one and stick it down, then grab another. Then I start to try to put them in a logical order, add some new ones, and crumple up some rejects into a rapidly-filling trash can.
I’ve learned writing practice from my friend and writing mentor Natalie Goldberg. She helped me not judge my mediocre first drafts and get words down on the page with a line I repeat to students,
“Feel free to write the worst junk in America.”
Natalie Goldberg and Debbie Merion
“Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts.” Says Anne Lamott. When those random thoughts are ping-ponging around your brain, it’s going to take a while to make sense out of them.
Debbie Merion and Anne Lamott
We can all learn who we are from our writing. I love especially working with 17 year olds, who are on the precipice of a new life.
I love helping them shape their essays about themselves into writing with insight and details that keep a reader engaged.
And that’s something that our new competitor, AI, can’t do. Yes, busy reader, AI can be very fast. But give yourself one month and you can write a strong essay, and learn so much about yourself. You might even be able to do it faster.
When it’s done, you’ll feel that sense of new self-knowledge. And if your essay is going to a college, you will send them something unique, sincere, and compelling.
“We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.”
― Ray Bradbury
To me, writing is challenging and rewarding. It’s life.
That’s why I love to write and love to teach writing, and I’m grateful that I have been able to do that for 20 years, through EssayCoaching.com. And I’m grateful Sarah Robbins is enjoying teaching writing too.
These are my thoughts on Thanksgiving Day, 2025.
