I have just finished reading the 1946 short book by George Orwell, 'Why I Write', and to be honest... the book has had me questioning myself and why I write... which I guess is the point.
George Orwell believes that there are four main reasons that people write. These are;
1. Sheer egoism - the desire to seem clever and wanting your work to be talked about.
2. Aesthetic enthusiasm - desire to share an experience which one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed.
3. Historical impulse - desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity.
4. Political purpose - desire to push the world in a certain direction and to alter other people's idea of the society they should be striving towards.
So which of these, as young budding journo's do we categorically fit into? Well the answer is up for debate but I believe that all of the reasons can be applied to some of us and at least one to everybody else.
Reading everybody's blogs I would say some of us are very interested in our work being noticed and praised by the lecturers (and in the working world, a publicist). Others are passionate about getting a point across in which they think is too valuable to miss to their peers. (Lucy Pilgrims attitude to grieving in her blog is a good example of this). Some are written with historical impulse to gather facts and indeed others are written with political purpose. (Andrew Emmerson :D).
I did notice that there is one reason for writing that Orwell did not mention directly in his book. This is writing for money. Having little passion for writing as such... just wanting to make a quid or two from it. He did however argue that egoistic writers share the same charicteristics as scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, successful business people etc. I think he may have been trying to say that egoistic writers are the ones in general who make a living from writing.
I'm still not sure why I write... maybe because if I didn't I would have a hard time passing this degree?? Answers on a postcard!
