From the National Day of Writing (Oct 20th)

Why write?

I don't know. Why read? It's amusing. It distracts. It transports. It reveals. Too many reasons and hardly any at all. There's very little in the way of logic about it. There's an embrace of abstract art, a sort of mysticism one wouldn't accept elsewhere in life.

Why write? Because it's endlessly surprising. I always shock myself with the things that pour out of my fingertips. Thoughts I didn't know I had. People I didn't realize I've met and studied. Situations that I would never have chosen to dissect or live through and yet here I am doing both.

It doesn't seem to matter much where ideas come from - be it some collective consciousness or higher power sparking inspiration. Even if it's only a product of re-hashing age old stories, nothing original, mere imitation of the basest sort... Writing always seems magical. Because with just a few words one can create worlds and people and ideas that never existed before. Because you can use it to communicate in a way speech will never let you (ink carries the promise of immortality). Because it seems to come from nowhere and everywhere all at once.

I mean, honestly. If you have to ask, it's obvious you don't do it. Or if you do, you don't get it. Even bad writers know that they HAVE to write. They get better. (If they don't, they probably end up making millions of dollars and getting movie franchises anyway because, hey, even poorly written stories tend to be universal in some way.)

I'm not concerned with literary quality - I'm concerned about the DRIVE to create. Why do we like to pen ourselves up with crazy thoughts and weird people we might not even like? Is this only a first world drive, to write? Does storytelling plague people without language? It transcends the ages of modern humanity, links us with our ancestors, passes on messages of hope against darkness, keeps people in line with other people...

Writing is a link to the past. It's a call to the future. It's a thought for the present.

Life must be so boring for those who don't write, who don't try to create, reach in and pull themselves out onto paper and screen.