ften, when people say, “I don’t know what to write,” they really mean one of two things: They haven’t spent enough time formulating their ideas, or they’re trying to write something they don’t really believe in.
Many years ago, I started writing fiction — or rather, I tried to start writing fiction. My attempts never amounted to anything, and for years, I didn’t understand why. It wasn’t until I read an essay on writing by Arthur Schopenhauer, the German pessimist, that it finally clicked. “There are above all two kinds of writers,” he wrote: “those who write for the sake of what they have to say and those who write for the sake of writing. The former have had ideas or experiences which seem to them worth communicating; the latter need money and that is why they write — for money.” (I think “money” can be substituted with “any external rewards” here.)
You know writing from that second category when you see it — whether it’s a news feature, a personal essay, or a blog post. It’s the kind that seems pointless, devoid of energy or care, as if the writer was not considering at all what the reader might want or need to get out of it. When I read this kind of writing I think, Why write this at all?
Of course, many of us write for money or recognition. Writing is a trade as well as a craft. But a good writer also writes what they write, the way they write, because they have experienced something in life, or because they’ve realized something they can’t hide from the world. This might be a specific experience or story they want to share, or it might be observations about how humans operate — the key is, they have something to say.
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