Why Write? Write for the Work Itself
Why do you write? You’ve likely heard some iteration of this question if you’re a writer. Perhaps a blogging guru online told you to craft a mission statement on your about page as to why you write. Maybe a curious family member asked at a get-together. Or perhaps you’ve found yourself staring at the blinking cursor once again and questioned why you’d put yourself through such agony in your free time.
In the midst of World War II, Dorothy Sayers, a contemporary and friend of C.S. Lewis, posed the question, “Why Work?” in an address delivered at Eastborne, England, on April 23, 1942. She feared that when the war was over, her society would fall back into its previous ways and views of work: work simply to make money, regardless of what that work might be, and create things just so they would sell, regardless of worth, goodness, or quality. In this address, Sayers called her listeners to a better theology and ethic of work.
If you’re like me, you may not consider the work you do as a writer as your primary work. But Sayers’s words about work still apply for us, even if writing isn’t our full-time job. She helps us ground ourselves in a theology of work and discover the better reason as to why we write.
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