Terry McMillan

Why I write?

"This writing stuff has saved me. It has become my way of responding to and dealing with things I find too disturbing or painful to handle in any other way. It's safe.
Writing is my shelter. I don't hide behind the words; I use them to dig inside my heart to find the truth. Plus, writing seems to be the only way I've been able to garner any real control over a situation or at least try to understand it. I guess I can say, honestly, that writing also offers me a kind of patience I don't have in my ordinary day-to-day life. It makes me stop. It makes me take note. It affords me a kind of sanctuary that I don't get in my hurried and full-to-the-brim-with-activity life.
Besides that, I'm selfish, and self-absorbed. But I discovered that writing makes me less so. It has made me more compassionate. In fact, it's all what I've always prayed for: to have more compassion. For everybody. I've learned that every human being has feelings despite the fact that sometimes I have my doubts and everybody thinks no one understands how they feel and that no one could possibly feel what they feel. It's simply not true. Shock, shock, shock.
I'm also nosey, and I want to understand why I do some of the things I do and why we're so stupid, and in order to come close to empathizing, I had to learn how to get under someone else's skin. Writing has become my in and out.
If I understood half of what I do or feel, I probably wouldn't waste my time writing. But I like that probing. I like being scared sometimes. I like worrying about folks. I want to show what can happen when we err, and when we "do the right thing" because as they say, no matter what you do sometimes, "shit happens". I like how we handle the sh-- when it does hit the fan- especially when we throw it into the blades ourselves.
I just want to pay attention to the details of everyday life. I want to be a better person. I want to feel good more often. I want to know when I don't, why I don't. Writing gives me this.
Painting as accurate a picture as I can of our behavior as I see it. I'm not trying to "air dirty laundry" at all; I'm just trying to get us to hold up a mirror and take a long look. Most of us don't think about what we do; we just act and react. Many of us don't reflect or wonder what larger issues are really at stake.
Writing is helping me mature as long as I'm not bull-shitting myself, the act itself forces me to face and understand my flaws and weaknesses and strengths and if I'm honest- really honest- then writing is like a wake-up call. I become my own therapist. Because nobody knows me better than me, and if I do my job, I can ease my heart inside another character's until I feel what they feel, think what they think, and when I'm able to become- say, a chronic liar and begin to lie, and as the writer come to know and understand why this person uses lies as a way to defend him or herself, then I  know i'm on the right track because i cannot write about someone I do not in real life respect or admire but whom I've come to understand. Writing has taught me not to be judgmental, I usually write about people I don't usually favor, who do things I would either never dream of doing, and, therefore, I sort of have to make myself undo my own senses of thinking and being. It can be exhilarating, freeing, a real eye-opener, and painful as hell.
Maybe I'm weird, but I want to know what it feels like to die. To have your heart broken. Why do people hurt each other intentionally? Why do folks lie? And cheat? What kind of person can kill another person and sleep at night? What does a man feel when he beats his wife? Why does she stay? How do women like this tolerate the pain alone? How do children learn to hate? Their parents? What is a good parent? What does it feel like to discover that you're gay and you're twelve? Why do some people not have the capacity to forgive?  How long can I hold a grudge? And why are some people nicer and likable, more responsible than others?
I could go on and on- but the bottom line is that I didn't make a conscious decision to become a writer. I never did it for the money. I never did it for fame. Who knew? Who ever knows? I think somehow the craft chose me. The words have given me ownership and a sense of security. Writing is the only place I can be myself and not feel judged. And I like it there."