Some questions have obvious answers.
This one isn’t always as simple as it looks…
Writers write for all kinds of reasons, and most of them have nothing to do with deadlines or deliverables.
Here are the ones that I think feel the most true… well at least for me it does.
1. It Makes Us Happy
Not every time.
Not always.
I guess not for every draft that we do for a paid assignment.
But if and when you write for yourself, for whatever reason, to release your thoughts into the ether or whatever, it brings happiness.
At least it does to me.
And that’s why I spend at least 15 mintues per day banging out 1000 words. Just mental diarrhea. Nothing thoughts. Written thoughts that don’t really get to see the light of day.
Just something to keep the mental blade’s edge sharp.
I guess something within me happens when a sentence lands exactly the way you meant it to… a quiet satisfaction that’s hard to find anywhere else.
Writing, at its best, feels like the right version of yourself showing up every day that lets you pour out your thoughts onto paper.
Or a word doc.
2. It Gives Us Purpose
A blank page is a reason to wake yourself up and fill it up with something.
It doesn’t have to fill up the entire page.
You don’t have to write a thousand words to cover each inch of the blank doc.
Even a word. One word. Is good enough.
Or a doodle.
For a lot of writers, or those that I’ve come to talk to and work with, the work isn’t just something they do.
It’s part of who they are.
Having something to say, and the ability to say it, gives direction to days that might otherwise feel formless.
3. It Lets Us See the World Differently
Writing forces you to slow down and actually look at things differently.
At least that’s what it makes me do.
I find that when you write, you often notice details you’d normally walk past.
You find meaning in ordinary moments.
Poetry in action.
The act of putting pen to paper, something into words changes how you understand it in the first place.
4. It Connects Us to Other People
A piece of writing that resonates with a stranger is one of the more remarkable things a human being can do.
Someone reads something you wrote and thinks… yes, that’s exactly it.
That connection, across distance and time, is something writing does better than almost anything else.
5. It Lets Us Process the Hard Stuff
Grief, confusion, frustration, joy.
Writing gives all of it somewhere to go.
The page doesn’t judge.
It just receives.
A few months ago, I needed someone to talk to.
Desperately.
And I had no one to confide in.
No one who would understand the pain and grief I was going through.
And it helped me a lot get over that.
Accept the changes and move on.
In a way.
I haven’t read through the things I’ve written months back but I know that if I wade through all that gibberish stuff, I found a way to flesh out the words I wanted to say, scream into a document my pain and let the process take place and trust it.
6. It Lets Us Earn a Living Doing What We Love Most
Last but not least, there’s this.
This is still the part that still feels a little unreal sometimes… that the thing we’d do anyway, for free, in a notebook nobody reads, is also the thing that pays the bills.
Iw as very young when I was told that I should find work that I love o do and I’ll never work a day. I’ve been in constant pursuit of that.
When I was younger I wrote a lot of things. Plays, books, novels. I emulated the works of the writers I admired and I didn’t know then that I was training myself for a life of this… a writer.
It’s not perfect.
But I love it.
And I get to earn a living from it.
It’s not much.
But I have a plan.
And that plan is slowly coming true.
I just have to keep showing up every day.
And that my fruend, are the reasons why we write.
I hope you find your reason/reasons.
