Adonis Diaries

Why women write? (February 2, 2010)

A gathering of 50 Lebanese authors, mostly women, were invited to contribute a chapter on the topic “Why I write”.  The volume collected 50 developed reasons for the desire to write.

I intend to classify the reasons accompanied with succinct summaries.

An abbot wrote in 1771 “We have got to steadfastly refrain from writing. If we have to write, then it is better be worthier than silence”

“I got an ink pen as gift at the age of nine.  It was meant to write with.  I was trained to write: I am a shy person and writing was deliverance.  Writing is now a fatality” said Fifi Abou Dib

“I send letters; thus, I consider that I publish”

“I write to reduce the distance that separates me with the other”

“Words and ideas do not procure pleasure: it is the attention and expressed solicitude that grab the emotions of the reader”

“The frozen words, suspended in mid air, melted. Like cannon ball echoes, words reverberated in living booms” wrote Rabelais.

“I jot down words and erase many.  I save words that remind me of shadows, reflection, music and lighted images.  In humility, simplicity, and candor I receive the “Torma”, this loaf of bread placed in Tibet on roads for the hungry pilgrims.  Never mind that birds get first serving” wrote Mounir Abou Debs.

“Writing is breaking the silence. More importantly, publishing is to animate discussions, rectifying idiosyncrasies, and giving meaning to our belief that mankind is one species.”

“Writing is a mode of existing, of identification, and of resistance”

“I write because voices demand it”

“Writing is the best technique to training my mind: I write to recollect my mostly forgotten childhood; I write to glorify youth by pitying mine; I write to chastise grandly my adulthood; I write to rejuvenate my feelings in middle age; I write to live the rebirth child in me, eyes wide opened, as years advances.” Adonis49