Why I Write

While these three simple, yet potent monosyllabic words are reverberating, I must take a moment to live up to them. After all, they make three very powerful assumptions.

I am a writer.

I have a reason to write.

Others are interested in that reason.

Throughout my life, I have never once introduced myself to others as a writer. Instead, I have introduced myself as an artist. "Artist" is a particularly ambiguous title – as far reaching and all encompassing even as saying "jack-of-all-trades." For this reason, it becomes almost dangerous to say that I am an artist. Assumptions are made. Proof is requested. I must stammer and bow my way out, avoiding the embarrassment of having my soul ripped from my body and laid on the examination table for scrutiny by the unforgiving searchlights that are others' eyes. Despite the potential discomfort inherent in my title, though, I have kept it. However, this title is not "writer" so it is remarkably presumptuous to claim any connection to the profession.

This brings me to question why I can say that I am a writer. To know whether I am, I need of course to know from what a writer is created. Based off of the characteristics I have seen in those that claim to be writers, I came to the conclusion that anyone constantly barraged by stories in his or her head may be classified as one. Since I suffer from the disease of tale-telling as well, I may call myself a writer with safety – at least by my own definition. The term "writer" naturally stems from the reason for writing, which brings me to the second assumption.

Writers are constantly hearing or creating or reinventing stories that they wish to share. I believe this is the driving force behind any writer's works. Words taste like honey as they flow from my mind to a page – something so delicious cannot be resisted. Writing is a compulsion and is completely impossible to ignore. To leave the maelstrom of stories in my mind untended would be to distract myself with the constant urge to tell them. Hence I find my reason for writing: to release the dammed stream of tales berating my consciousness.

Finally, a writer cannot exist without readers, or people who care to know what the writer has to say, or why. Anyone can write a story, a poem, or a song and call him- or herself a writer. However, it is only those whose work is read and appreciated who are truly deserving of the title. This is because words will rot on the page without eyes to see them, and will slip away through the cracks in the floor, ceasing to exist from disuse. But with a reader, words come alive, leap into a reader's mind and from there weave fantastic landscapes, mesmerizing characters and scintillating plots. They rejoice to be heard, to be read and to be loved. If a writer cannot accomplish this through his or her writing, he or she is not a writer at all.

Therein lies my core reason for writing – to bring happiness to my readers. I may say fine words about higher thinking, or bringing a new school of thought into existence through my supposedly intelligent works, or even about a new "great American novel." All of it means nothing if there are no readers for whom to write. The words will fall flat and die. Meaning will be meaningless.

So I write to you, dear reader, who I have never met but I love, because you have the power to bring my words alive, to fill them with light and movement and most importantly, meaning. I cannot tell you what my words mean, you must decide it for yourself. And from this ever-changing, ever-growing network of shifting ideas comes the faint echo of three reverberating monosyllabic words: Why I Write.

The answer is: for you.