Why I write

Earlier this week, I read an article in The Australian about how today's teenagers use an average vocabulary of only 800 words each day, preferring instead to use the abbreviated language of text messaging and hip-hop. I've never counted, but from reading the article, it would seem that 800 is not very high – in fact, it appears that "800 words will not get you a job". What's more, "yeah", "no" and "but" all feature in a top 20 that accounts for about one third of the words they use.

All of which I find a little sad. Especially when I think about how much I love words.

Here's a quick 50 from Australian poet Kenneth Slessor:

I looked out my window in the dark

At waves with diamond quills and combs of light

That arched their mackerel-backs and smacked the sand

In the moon's drench, that straight enormous glaze,

And ships far off asleep, and Harbour-buoys

Tossing their fireballs wearily each to each,

And tried to hear your voice, but all I heard

Was a boat's whistle, and the scraping squeal

Of seabirds' voices far away, and bells,

Five bells. Five bells coldly ringing out.

Incredible writing if you ask me, but then Kenneth Slessor was far beyond the reach of teenage angst by the time he penned Five Bells.

Which brings me to another of my favourite writers, George Orwell. I must admit to a touch of hubris in taking the title for this post from an essay he wrote in 1949. That said, there's nothing particularly unique about the title, and it does seem fair given that I'm discussing a similar subject – although maybe not quite with the same degree of finesse.

In his essay, Orwell took the time to outline "four great motives for writing": sheer egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse, and political purpose. By his standards, I'm guilty of sheer egoism simply by continuing to write past the age of 30; I'm not the sentimental type, so posterity in the guise of historical impulse holds little appeal for me; and yes, I am political, if you subscribe to Orwell's broadest definition of the term.

But what most strikes a chord in my heart is aesthetic enthusiasm: what Orwell describes as everything from "words and their right arrangement" to typography and even the width of margins.

For me, there's something wide-eyed and beautiful in an elegant turn of phrase. Each word gently pushed along by a mix of alliteration, juxtaposition, onomatopoeia, repetition, rhetoric, tempo, crescendo, cadence, the list goes on.

Which all goes to explain why I love the work we're doing for Griffin Theatre Company – apologies for the shameless plug!

And I was pretty excited when I found this recent Fiction issue of Vice, with every page dedicated to new writing.

However, words don't always comes all that easily for people. It takes time and effort and discipline, as well as creativity and flair and ideas. And that even goes for some of the most prolific writers, as Stephen Fry explained in what will be his last blog post for a little while.

For me, writing isn't always easy, but it is important. In a previous post, I wrote about how they say a picture is worth a thousand words, but a single word can start ten thousand stories. That said, not too many of them start Yeah no but.