Why the hell do you write?

I know no better feeling that the one I get after I create something from nothing. That's why I've started writing and that's why I make music.

 

They calls to me. They reach out from the shadows of my mind haunting my thoughts. Characters plead, no demand release into the light of day. Would I not be a murderer if I kept them chained in darkness?

 

I don't know, it's something I've done since I was a little kid. It feels natural, and when I don't write I miss it.

 

The idea to create something, from nothing that could potentially reach many people what could stick with them for many years is something that I feel like putting my soul into. I actually do something productive. Alternatives would be ... less productive to say the least.

For me, the same goes for other things like chess or going to gym, I will ask me the following question "where will I be in one year?" I probably be better at it, finished my first real story and touched a handful op people with it, and the fact there's progress motivates me to do those things over lazier things like watching tv. Furthermore, it is beneficial to my mental health, so that's a win win situation.

 

Guys, can I be honest? I like to indulge myself in writing the actual prose. When I string together words I delight in a particularly fitting word or a sequence of sentences that carries the power of a poem. This particular aspect of enjoying writing is not far removed from what I enjoy about reading a well written paragraph in a story. And the texture of the paper, and the ink, and the typesetting.... It's quite the aesthetic pleasure, I think.

I write stories because it is a suitable medium for some things I want to explore for myself or communicate. Stories, and the shape in which they are presented, tend to take a life on their own as I'm writing them. I'll quickly find myself in a dialogue with a story and learning from it, as if I'm being told things I didn't know before or haven't thought of in a certain way. That is something that makes writing so very rewarding.

 

It calms me. I am able to escape all the craziness that is my life and put my thoughts down on paper. I can put the emotions I feel into the character on the screen in front of me and forget that I'm mad about something that happened at my job or that my husband forgot to do something I asked him countless times to do. Sometimes I do it just because I have this great idea in my head and if I don't get it out I go stir crazy and feel off and edgy. I'm just one of those people that find it easier to write about something than speak about it.

 

I write because stories are the way my brain functions. I always see the story behind my surroundings: I always have a hypothesis about why my colleague is saying this exact thing, why the neighbors are leaving in their Sunday clothes and suits on a week night, why the cashier is completely distracted. When I daydream, I live stories.

Probably the best example is the way I fall asleep every single night. Once every couple of months, I start a story in my head. In the minutes before I fall asleep, I continue the story where I left off the night before. I can always deduce how long it was before I fell asleep by how much the story has progressed. Typically only a couple of minutes, so the story progresses very slowly. Once I'm no longer inspired, I start the next one. I've heard it's actually an 'anchoring' technique and it's a good way to get your brain in a specific 'setting'. I guess it explains why I never ever have trouble falling asleep. I've been doing this since forever, I can't remember a time, even as a kid, when I didn't...