Why Writers Write

July 23, 2013 -

I wrote my first "novel" at age eight because I had nothing to read, had characters I liked and was fascinated by Tancook Island off the coast of Nova Scotia. I added my favorite plot - a mystery - and wrote longhand, single spaced in a Hilory Notebook. Although I've not re-read Pam and Penny and the Mystery on Tancook Island, I do have it thanks to my mother's habit of keeping everything. It was decades before I came back to writing fiction. Nonetheless, that book defined me. I am a writer.

I have writer friends who, after reading a book they couldn't stand, decided they could do better. Several have done better and are well published. Others loved telling stories and over the years wrote for their siblings and friends. Some are published in the fiction world, others are not. They are writers.

Teens of my acquaintance wrote YA novels when their favorite authors didn't publish new books fast enough. They wrote joyously, freely and prolifically which is an excellent way for writers to write.

Many of us wrote journals, letters, secret books, non-fiction material and well-crafted reports. Eventually the writers among us sought out other writers and joined the writing world for all to see. It doesn't mean they published books. But they wrote, they learned about writing, they talked about writing and they acknowledged they are writers and relaxed into the fellowship of writers. They did not become writers, they were always writers.

Writers write. They can't help it. They write the way garden variety golfers golf: when they can, where they can, as often as they can and for the enjoyment of the process or for the satisfaction of having written.

Whatever your purpose or your result, if you are a writer you must write because your being demands it. You write to solve problems, to calm yourself, to entertain both yourself and others and for a multitude of other personal reasons. You are writers.

WRITE ON, fellow writers, WRITE ON!

2 comments:

  1. I love that you say, "They did not become writers, they were always writers." It's taken me a long time to embrace my writing self and give her room to create. I have been fortunate in the response to some of my writing but it doesn't really matter anymore because I just have to write - because I AM A WRITER TOO!

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    1. So happy you have achieved your "spade" and write stories we can enjoy. And writers make wonderful friends for other writers - eh what?

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