Why Do You Write?

[Philip Roland]

For you wordsmiths and Hemingwannabes out there, why do it?

[Christopher J. Lawton]

I've seen these threads before. You always get the people who say "I write, because I'd go crazy if I didn't", like that makes them deep or some shit.

I'll tell you why I write. Because I'm an introvert, with low self-esteem, who loves to live out fantasies in his head.

[Andrea Speed]

I think writing is a mental illness, and some of us don't do well on medication. Or at least that's my excuse.

[Blake Petit]

Because I can't NOT write. Because all of this stuff starts turning over in my head, and I need to get it out and make some sort of sense out of it.

[B. Schatz]

I don't know, and I don't care.

Sure is fun, though.

[Wolfwood]

I have stories in my head, that I turn over and over. But when I try to write them down, IDK, it's difficult. I should probably just stop LOL.

[jx141]

I don't, not on paper anyway. Since I was a kid I've always just run through stories in my head, of different characters existing and original, different genres, worlds, fantasy sci-fi whatever but never written anything beyond papers for schooling or technical documents for work.

Kudos and thanks to all of you with the cajones (yes even women can have cajones) who do!

[Philip Roland]

I think my old English teacher had the best reason. Guy was an unrepentant drunk and wrote brilliantly, but he never published because for him, writing was never about that. It was just something to do.

"I write," he said to me, "because it's free, and whiskey costs money."

[Christopher J. Lawton]

I think my old English teacher had the best reason. Guy was an unrepentant drunk and wrote brilliantly, but he never published because for him, writing was never about that. It was just something to do.

"I write," he said to me, "because it's free, and whiskey costs money."

That's... beautiful.

[Philip Roland]

Isn't it, though?

I always thought he would write like Hemingway because of the drinking and the fact that he kind of looked like him. Big, solid guy, paunchy gut, affinity for sweaters, even rocked the white beard. Loved fishing and the like. But he wrote more or less like Kazuo Ishiguro, surprisingly. Real poetic, elegant, flowing verse. Same type of theme, same sense of scope.

Man. I need to get back in touch with that bastard.