Why Write? Oranges

Why write?

It's a devious question to ask. It's a dangerous question to ask. There are things you can do that have much simpler explanations: Why do you ride roller coasters? Because it's fun, it's a rush, I like that weird screaming/laughing thing people do on it. Why do you ride a motorcycle? I tried to convince myself it was because it was eco-friendly, but shit I just like the marriage of grace and screaming death you get from riding. Why do you drink? Because drunk. Simple.

But why write?

Writing is something for masochists. You basically go through 5 stages of writing a work and they follow thus:

1) Get an idea!

I have this great idea! I should write a (novel, poem, short story, etc).
You're super excited about your idea. You develop it in your mind, flesh it out, rack your brain on how to start it. Pretty soon it's boiling out your ears and all you want to do is commit it and rake in royalties for the next 10 years. You may piss off at work to scribble sentences in a notebook, you might spend lunchbreaks on a laptop, you may even carry notes in your cellphone.
Perfect title! Well, maybe a working title: "The Ur-Angeh"

2) You start to really write it

Yeah, now I'm getting in to the meat of it. The ideas are coming out on to the paper, it's all beautiful and pretty, and so easy!
You're etching meaning into something with permanence! Yes! Every sentence is another shining beacon of intellect and witty humor. You can smell the benjamins from here, move over 'Catch in the Rye', you're about to drop a bomb in the American subconscious.
That funny thing you did with the oranges was awesome, people are going to buy it just for that shit.

3) You start to really... actually... write it

Ugh, why is it taking so long to get this stuff out? I've been writing for 5 weeks straight! I've only got like, 40 pages! What the hell! This writing thing takes too long.
That boundless energy wears off. Now writing is just a second job you do at night once you're done cleaning off the barstools or teaching orphans how to read or murdering drifters to sell to the roach coach on Northern Boulevard.
I'll just half-ass some of those chapters. I can fill them in later. People will still be high on the oranges thing.

4) You finish it

I... I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! I've only got forty pages and twelve storylines to tie in, then off to the presses!
Ah, you're very close! Perhaps you're like me and you like to write the last chapter at the midpoint and see how well things tie in, maybe you just know how it ends and you just 'feel' it coming. Either way you're just about there. Not long now, then you can take a break from your indentured servitude.
Maybe if I bring back the orange thing right before the end, then that first orange thing was only foreshadowing the real orange thing. Yeah, that's good.

5) You start editing it

I get to read it in it's entirety! This is going to be great, I can finally see where all my hard work went and OH MY GOD THIS IS AWFUL. WHAT WAS I THINKING? I used "orange" nine times in two sentences! What is wrong with me?
Now you get to start from the beginning and read the whole thing through as if you weren't the putz that wrote it. That will be fun right? WRONG. You learned things while you were writing, probably read books and generated a style for the story. Now the beginning is wonky and you can tell the exact moment that phase one wore off because the writing takes a dramatic nosedive. Now for the pain of editing...
Fucking oranges man.

In short, I write because I hate myself on a very deep personal level and I prefer the hell I control to the one I'd experience huffing paint fumes in the alley behind the Walmart.

Or because it's great to create an entire world, a society, and to lay a glamor over someone else and bring them into it to experience a world created entirely from your imagination. But that sounds a little too trite.

I'll go with 'drunk' again.