Why Do You Write?

[black roses]

So I can create a world. So I can create people, and have my way with them. And after a while, I beging to geniunely like them. The characters are the best part, creating a person, making them what they are, and they giving them a life, a past, motivations... and using them. Watching them grow, watching them evolve. Sometimes I don't even know what I'm writing- I'll have this whole plan for a scene but when i get down and write it, it ends up differently, just because it seemed- right. That's why I do it. I've always loved writing, anyway, always had the urge.

[polarglen]

I write to shut up the voices in my head even if no one ever reads what I produce.  I write because when I told my mother I wanted to be a writer when I grew up, she told me I'd never be a writer and that I'd have "to work for a living."  I've spent years trying to shut up her voice in my head.

[Hope]

I write because the characters pester me and the scenes keep coming up in my mind.

[Pinky Narfanek]

I write (what little I do manage to get down) because otherwise the ideas go running amok in my head.  I'll be obsessed with them for weeks until I finally "forget" (i.e. give up on) them.  And then I get mad at myself for not writing it down.

Besides, when I'm drifting off to sleep at night, I like to tell myself stories.  And when I write it gives me more of a story.

[Fade]

I write (what little I do manage to get down) because otherwise the ideas go running amok in my head.  I'll be obsessed with them for weeks until I finally "forget" (i.e. give up on) them.  And then I get mad at myself for not writing it down.

Besides, when I'm drifting off to sleep at night, I like to tell myself stories.  And when I write it gives me more of a story.

see im the same way i tell myself stories to keep myself entertained . i write it down because i feel the need to.

[The Dread Pharaoh Roberts]

Because if I don't, they won't let me play on the Dresden RPG boards...

[Hope]

That was how it started for me, the stories in school because BORED, and at night to go to sleep.  Those ones get lost because, darn it, I go to sleep & forget!

[ballplayer72]

I started writing to get something off my chest, and the work kinda hijacked me.  Now its its own thing

[Murphy's Stunt Double]

What makes you sit down at the keyboard or with that pen and paper and begin to form that world?

Wellll.... short form, the answer is....

because I can't *not* do it.

Long form... the reason I can't *not* do it is because I want to create a world that goes the way I want it to go. Where the people do the things I want them to do...

Used to be, that was a problem, because there was no conflict...

And then I matured, and realized that getting oneself freed from the conflict was what made the adventure interesting...

And now... it's a matter of, my real life has very little conflict and without it... I don't feel so alive...

does that make sense?

[meg_evonne]

I write for my own pleasure and have for years. Recently I realized that I had reached the best I could be.  If I wanted to improve my craft I would need to open up to others.  To have them help, guide and critique my work.   I needed to study the basics, take classes and further my skill.  I am enjoying the journey.

Usually I get jump started by something that happens in the real world and I am forced to address it through my writing. 


To Hope concerning dreams,  You can train yourself to remember your dreams.  Keep a pen & paper next to your bed.  When you awake in the dark, just reach for it and start writing.  Don't even turn on the light.  In the morning you will find the scratches and they will take your mind back to the dream.  Some people call them dreamlogs. A Lutheran pastor taught it as a core curriculum class in a South Dakota college (large Am. Indian student population) and through study he learned a great deal about dreams and visions.

With enough time (okay maybe years for most but for writers and artists it can be learned in an incredibly short time) you can actually lay down to sleep and tell yourself to pick up the dream from before.  Your dreams will become 3D and filled with your senses. 

You can't image what a dreamlog will do for your writing!  enjoy your dreams and your writing! 

[Spectacular Sameth]

I write to get my mind uncluttered. See, the way I see my writing is like this: over the course of the years I took things and stored them in my attic (or head) and when I try to go up there and find something, all I see is boxes full of things I don't need. How the hell does it multiply like that? Writing is my way of taking the stuff I don't need out, box it up, and sell it in a garage sale.


To add to this metaphor, people will (hopefully) buy these thoughts and use them, but when they do, they won't understand my attachment to them or why I had them in the first place. Just like things you get at a garage sale.

[Cyclone Jack]

I write because it's one of the ways that my mind analyzes and makes sense of the world. I write all the time, in my head. Putting the stories that result into electronic and paper form is simply the logical outcome of my continuous, ongoing observation and analysis of the big, mysterious world around me.

[Rabidpancakes]

I write to escape from reality for a few minutes a day and put my ideas and beleifs into something real. I also do it so one day I can be legendary. Naw, I already am Legendary, just need to get off the road for a while.

[Uilos]

I asked someone this question once, she replied simply, and in a matter that reminded me of Steve Zissou, "Revenge"

bless her zombie bones...

I see the scene in crystal quality in my head. Everytime I finish a scene, unless I'm not satisfied with it, it more or less is gone from my vision, because it's not there anymore, it's on the page. I'm pouring my scene out onto the page

[TragicKingdom]

This may sound like a high-brow repsonse, but I write to make points with the story serving a giant exclamation mark.

One of my books was about vanity, another one was about TV, my newest is about underprivledge. I start with a point I'm trying to make and I build a story around it. It always works.