#WhyIWrite

I'm interrupting the regularly scheduled programming (aka talking about my dating, family and drinking life) in honor of National Writing Day, which as I just found out from Twitter*, is today.

Last night, during a particularly lovely text conversation with a guy I met on Bumble (judge me.), he asked me if I had always wanted to be a writer. He also asked me if I knew what "Truffle Butter" was and if I needed help researching a story on "50 Tips For Giving An Orgasm With A Feather," but I digress.

The short answer to his question is yes, I have always wanted to be a writer (And yes I know what Truffle Butter is, no I don't want his help with my research, yes I will still probably have drinks with him). Here's why.

When I was in 2nd grade, I won a national poetry contest for the following poem, which, 18 years later, I still remember verbatim:

RAIN 

Zoe Weiner, age 7

Peaceful Light

In Each Drop

Making Not A Whisper With The Wind

Me and my first boyfriend composing award winning work. 

Obviously, they didn't expect as much out of 2nd graders in 1996 as they do in 2015 (considering my
4-year-old nephew knows how to make his own YouTube videos and is proficient enough with an iPhone to hang up on me when I'm boring him, I can only imagine that kids these days are way smarter then we were back then), but whatever. That poorly formed Haiku got me my picture in the newspaper, a new dress, a ton of flowers, a ceremony in my honor, and, best of all, more attention than any of my siblings for at least a month.

After that, I was hooked (realistically, it was the attention thing that got me). I started writing stories about my imaginary friends Alvin, Simon and Theodore (of Alvin and the Chipmunks fame) and forcing my parents to take them to Kinkos to get them bound into legit looking books, complete with illustrations.

In middle and high school, I was an English buff.... Sort of. I glossed over pretty much all of the readings (8th grade's Princess Bride? So much yes. But AP English's Paradise Lost? Give me a break.) but loved when I got the opportunity to show off my writing, as long as I didn't have to read a book first. The two huge, semester long  English paper's I had to write — one about my older brother, Steven; one about my eating disorder — earned me A+'s. I don't know how that's relevant, it's just something I like to bring up whenever possible (In that same vein, I was the head of A Capella in high school, too. Ask me about it).

I got to college and tried out business school because I knew I had expensive taste and a writing career wouldn't allow me to afford my lifestyle. It took me three semesters to realize I could barely calculate a tip, let alone balance a proof, and gave it up after three semesters to pursue a degree in English and Journalism. Now, I'm at Columbia getting my Masters in Journalism and spending any free minute I have writing for this blog, and this blog, and this website where I offer "advice on how to do really dumb stuff that people apparently don't know how to do,"  as my friend Ben so poignantly described it to me the other day.

So, here I am: 24-years-old and for all intents and purposes, mainly because I don't have an actual "real" job, a writer.

When I quit my job as a fashion assistant at Glamour a few months ago, it was,  at first, really weird to call myself that. The first guy I went out with after quitting pretty much laughed in my face when I told him that was what I did (he was, naturally, a banker with an attitude problem) and it took me a long time after that to be able to declare with confidence that, Yes. This is what I do.

Here's the thing: after years (literally, 20+ of them) dreaming about what I wanted to be when I grew up, it's a strange feeling to think I'm pretty much there. Yes, I still have a lot to do (like graduate, get a job that pays more than minimum wage, take Cindi Leive's job) to be able to actually say I've "made it," but it at least feels like I'm getting there.

So, to finally give the answer to the question I asked 9 paragraphs ago, I write because I realized in college that I'm really, really bad at math.




*Side note: I just spent an hour deleting ALL of the random people I've been following on Twitter since 2010. Including, but not limited to "menzsportshumor" and "uglyharvardgirlproblems"