Why do I write? Why must I write? I’ve been pondering these questions lately. Why is it that I’ve been able to just jump in and do it at this point when I couldn’t before?
For me, personally, it was a distinct void of satisfaction that caused my writing to really take off. I’ve always been the kind of person who enjoys working hard on something that has a definite end. Working on it, seeing it through and, then, be able to look back on my work and say, “I did that.” That feeling of purely personal accomplishment had been lacking in my life recently.
I had ideas. I had started things but I wasn’t really serious about it. Then, one night, I was having dinner with a friend. I listened to her talk about her job. The business had just turned two years old and, as I heard her talk about how very overwhelmed she was by the people who had contacted her in order to communicate their thanks for the difference this company had made in their lives, I found myself wishing, hoping that I, too, would, one day have the privilege to do something so meaningful.
It was, in fact, at that same dinner that I expressed my desire to follow through with the ideas I had started. A writer at heart, it was something I knew I enjoyed. It was something I could do endlessly. All I had to do was find a reason to write. Without a reason, even passions often fall to the wayside. Though it didn’t come to me right away, I found that reason over the next few months. Who knows exactly at what point I found my reason but, now, I’m sure of it, fully. Why do I write? Because it makes me feel good. Because it allows me to escape. Because it allows me to relax. Because it gives me an outlet for my thoughts. Because I know that I’m accomplishing something, even if it’s just for myself.
Obviously, every author wants to be read. Every author wants to influence people. Every author wants to leave something behind… but that’s not why we write. We write because, quite frankly, we can’t not write.
