Why Do I Write?

I have been pondering that question this morning. Why, indeed, do I write? Writing takes up hours, days, weeks, months of my life. Writing is pouring my heart and soul into the life of my characters. It is taking words and forming them into a person. But then  (and this is the best part) using only words to make that person seem alive and real with problems and hopes and goals.

Writing a book is a little like presenting your child to someone and wanting desperately for that someone to see how special and beautiful and unique your child is. Writing is wanting others to like my characters almost as much as I do. Sort of an impossible task, isn’t it?

Is writing hard? I don’t know. It might be hard if I didn’t like to write but I love it. I suppose it is hard to the extent that it can be heartbreaking. As a writer, I want sales to soar; I want others to want to read my books. When this doesn’t happen then I would say, yes, writing is hard.

So, why do I write? Well, you see, mysterious plots keep coming to mind. I think, “What if?” And before I know it, I’m sitting at the computer, writing, writing, writing.

Selling is something else entirely. I’ve never wanted to be a sales woman and I’m not good at it. I’ve always been of the opinion that if you want and like something, you’ll buy it; if you don’t, you won’t. Why twist myself into a pretzel trying to change minds? Perhaps I was born with a writing gene and there’s nothing I can do about it. I only know that I am a writer and I write.

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