I've often mused on why people write, what it is they hope to achieve through literature. After quite some reading, I've come to a few conclusions myself. I've often mused on why I write. Initially, it was a blind need that drove me to grab a page and fill it with words. Something had disturbed me, horrified me and I wanted to communicate that to someone. After that, it was a need to produce more stories, to write as if there were no tomorrow, as if I were in a mad race against time. Since the day I started, I haven't let the pen out of my hands nor have I let my mind become idle. From time to time there's this recurring question. Why do I write? Every time I ask myself, I come up with more answers. Well, here they are.
Because there's something missing in my life and I seek it in the words.
Because I strive to recover something irretrievably lost.
Because words leave flavours upon my tongue.
Because there's a flame in my soul and I crave to ignite that same flame in the soul of others as well.
Because the world has sunk into the abyss of apathy, and a demon nudges me to make a little revolution.
Because once I finish a work, the world is never the same.
Because there are things I must communicate and I know no other way.
Because every time I write, I strike through the status quo's pasteboard mask.
Because I am a vessel of fruitful imagination.
Because every time I write, I compose a new reality far superior and wiser than the one we live in.
Because art makes humans lose the very ground under their feet.
Because laws are hollow, order reeks of illusion and fragility and art is the only form of vindication humans can ever know.
Because words give birth to colours, tastes and images of a divine matter.
Because Samuel Beckett claimed that every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness.
Because I cannot endure the irrationality of existence and art is the only way to make sense of the world.
Because true freedom lies within the paper.
Because when I create my system, I renounce the chains of another man's system.
Because I want to open those doors that are in between things known and unknown in the universe as William Blake said.
Because it is humanity's nature to create.
Because I am a hunter of beauty.
Because Jorge Luis Borges had always imagined that Paradise would be a kind of library.
Because the most perfect reply to an artist is to create another work of art.
Because satisfaction is in the struggle with the blank page.
Because to be a writer means to live in the house of profound romanticism.
Because great writing means to let loose a phantom that will haunt the reader's mind and soul.
Because to be a writer means to be in a perpetual state of pregnancy.
Because art is immortality.
Because in the words lies the whole distillate of the human psyche.
Because Pablo Neruda dedicated to his beloved wife the most erotically mystical verse: te amo como se aman ciertas cosas oscuras, secretamente, entre la sombra y el alma.
Because to be an artist is to expose one's heart for all to crush or marvel at.
Because when I was a little girl, my mother opened the door to the wonderland of reading, and since then I've refused to find my way out.
Because my mother tongue is ineffably expressive.
Because visions whisper in my ears both in the state of dreaming and waking.
Because the sun blessed my country and the sea nurtures it.
Because in captain Ahab found refuge all the durability and sublimity of the human spirit.
Because I still cannot figure out in Benito Cereno who followed whose leader.
Because true places are never down on any map. (Melville)
Because all noble things are touched with melancholy. (Melville)
Because art is the Sacrament of the love for life.
Because sometimes an irresistible desire seizes me to freeze time.
Because when Edgar Allan Poe wrote his masterpiece, The Fall Of The House Of Usher, he looked the impenetrable madness in the eyes, and it was heartbreakingly exquisite.
Because Interview With The Vampire roused my jealousy and compelled me to want to fall in love with literature even deeper.
Because life is a perfect clock.
Because solitude is sacred.
Because Oscar Wilde knew The Portrait Of Dorian Gray was destined for immortality and he dared go against the whole of society.
Because the soul perishes when there are no wonders.
Because I chase after the taste of a dream I once had.
Because being in love equals painting poetry like a tattoo on the body of my lover.
Because in the melody of words I can hear his voice.
Because when he smiles my body dissolves into morning dew.
Because I wish to leave my imprint on the map of existence.
Because the perfume of ink is the most evocative, rivalling that of the sea.
Because the universe never ceases to amaze me.
Because in the summer sunlight I can see the greatest novel that was ever penned.
Because I can feel no greater love for my mother than writing a story for her.
Because when a baby laughs, a story is being written down on infinity's book.
Because when the sunset gets drowsy and sleeps upon the mattress of the corals, I pray to be alive till the next evening to see another one.
Because nothing great can ever be achieved without sweat and blood.
Because in the words I find my voice.
Because I lust after authenticity.
Because words are the angels of both death and resurrection.
Because words mean everything and words mean nothing.
Because when my flesh is nothing but salt and clay, my spirit will utter a cry of triumph.
Because through writing I seek the absolute obliteration of myself.
Because I have the strength to be vulnerable.
Because I cannot turn my back on who I am.
Because we are all children playing, and my toy box is full of words.
Because when I write the world is mine.
Because I was never given another choice.
Because I must.
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