His subject matter will be determined by the age he lives in-at least this is true in tumultuous, revolutionary ages like our own-but before he ever begins to write he will have acquired an emotional attitude from which he will never completely escape. I give all this background information because I do not think one can assess a writer's motives without knowing something of his early development. He then lays out what he believes to be the four main motives for writing, most of which extrapolate to just about any domain of creative output.
Orwell begins with some details about his less-than-idyllic childhood-complete with absentee father, school mockery and bullying, and a profound sense of loneliness-and traces how those experiences steered him towards writing, proposing that such early micro-traumas are essential for any writer's drive. Among his finest short-form feats is the 1946 essay " Why I Write" ( public library), a fine addition to other timeless insights on writing, including Kurt Vonnegut's eight rules for a great story, David Ogilvy's 10 no-bullshit tips, Henry Miller's 11 commandments, Jack Kerouac's 30 beliefs and techniques, John Steinbeck's six pointers, and various invaluable insights from other great writers.
Though he remains best remembered for authoring the cult-classics Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, he was also a formidable, masterful essayist. Literary legend Eric Arthur Blair, better known as George Orwell, would have been 109 today.
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