5 Reasons I Love To Write

Hello and welcome! Before getting right down to it, we should really talk about what writing is, and then I will give you five reasons why I love to write.

Writing, as described by dear old Google, ‘is the process of using symbols (letters of the alphabet, punctuation and spaces) to communicate thoughts and ideas in a readable form. It can also refer to a career’, such as that of author or freelancer.

There are many different reasons why people write, and not everyone does it as a career or profession. Some just love the act of writing for reasons known only to themselves.

For myself, I started enjoying writing from a rather young age. As a sickly child, I had to do something that wasn’t watching TV, since I wasn’t strong enough to play outdoors sometimes, plus my siblings and cousins preferred playing outdoors instead of keeping little old me company. I grew to enjoy my own company and that of the characters I read about in countless books, reading having been an escape from my own solitude into worlds of adventures, heroic characters and wild lands of magic and fantasy.

Eventually, that led to the first reason I love to write…

1: I Could Create My Own Company

I had friends. I had my family. I’ve had people over the years I’ve had meaningful and strong relationships with. What I lacked was that feeling of fitting in, of belonging. Call it cliche if you will, but to me it’s always been a particular demon plaguing me throughout my childhood and even into adulthood.

So I began to create characters I could relate to. I wrote about sickly little girls, moody young teenage women who walked around high school alone who had been given strange nicknames, women who tended to be silent observers instead of participants in life, watching it pass them by. They were all characters struggling to find their place in life but they were all characters I could relate to.

This led to my second reason for loving writing...

2: I Could Create My Own Ideal Worlds

In a blissful ideal world, we can still control the outcomes of shitty situations, such as those in real life, with the choices we give our characters. It’s not just about the trials and tribulations they face though, it’s also about the setting. You could maybe create worlds full of their own ideals and politics, lands and oceans, wildlife and magic. A world of your own making. It’s not just about the escapism, it’s about creating worlds where you can right some wrongs, dispel those demons and put to bed some inner thoughts or nightmares. Our own worlds tend to give us that little bit of freedom.

And there’s my next reason…

3: We Are Free To Write What We Want (Within Reason)

Firstly, I need to address the whole ‘within reason’ thing. Our words have a power that we HAVE to be careful with. Yes, it’s all well and good to voice your opinion and say what you think. I believe the freedom to express ourselves is important in evoking the right kind of response, but do you really want to stir up a hornet’s nest because you let your words go unchecked? I became a sensitivity reader in my free time seeing as I had friends who wanted to make sure that their opinions and word choices were used in such a way that it wouldn’t cause offense or emotional damage to the person reading. In my own writing, I’ll use the occasional swear word, I’ll be honest, but I do it as a way of emphasizing my point, and never as a slur. If I write articles, it’s usually to talk about stuff I like or to discuss something I find interesting. Rants tend to be one-sided and can annoy people and although I’m a people-pleaser at heart who doesn’t want to offend anyone, sometimes you gotta rant. I like expressing my opinion but I would never do it in a way that would offend anyone.

Which brings me to my next reason…

4: I Write As A Form Of Therapy

A lot of people actually do this. It’s not just me. I remember being eight years old and being fascinated with the idea of a ‘secret diary’, something that only you could read, complete with padlock and key, something sacred to hold my thoughts, feelings and ideas. A safe place. Ever since I got my hands on my first diary, I free-falled into a world where journaling every day was my way of processing the days and gossip if I had nobody to share it with. My angst would blossom into words on paper, filling this chaotic void with the soothing motions that journaling brought. I found that the more I wrote, the easier it was to articulate any thoughts and feelings I had and to process each one thoroughly. I didn’t stop at just writing about how I felt. I wrote as a means to see why I felt the way I did and how I could move forward from that feeling. I took it pretty seriously, if I’m honest, but I would never change my process.

I love the idea of writing as a form of therapy. It means I solve my problems myself and don’t need a therapist in my life. I do have other outlets nowadays, such as running and going to the gym, but nothing beats getting it all out on paper to me.

My last reason for writing is vastly different to this one…

5: I Write For My Own Pleasure

That’s not a weird one, right? I mean, yeah, I could be writing as a career and not a hobby but then I feel I’d be a money/success driven maniac, focusing on sales and wanting to see a copy of my book or books on every shelf in the world. Really though, that would hit the sweet spot. We are not writers if we don’t occasionally have this thought. But no, I definitely write for my own pleasure.

I’ve read so many books over the years that I’ve always enjoyed making a story about something, anything. In high school, for example, I wrote about a simple trip to the toilet. The class exercise was to write about something normal and make it dramatic. So it wasn’t just a simple trip to the toilet. It was a heroic quest in which the protagonist faced a series of battles before making it to the very satisfying end. I would write about wars between bugs and windows, love stories between two pooches (you have Lady and the Tramp to thank for that, it was a kind of re-telling), anything I could dream, I wrote about. I’ve carried this on into adulthood and I don’t think I’ll stop.

It’s a great way of broadening the mind and keeping yourself amused. I may no longer be the sickly child with a wild imagination who used writing as an escape and therapy but I’m something both new and old, forever timeless, hopefully immortalized through pen and paper. I’m a writer! And I love it!

The thing is, if you love it then do it, right? If writing is something you enjoy, then don’t let other people take the joy out what you love doing. You only ever improve with time. So never give up. Get those words onto paper. Publish those pieces. Let the world see into your soul and search for the real you. We’re writers. It’s what we do.

I thank you all for taking the time to read this. If you like it, give it a cheeky thumbs up and maybe drop a tip if you really loved it! It is very much appreciated and you guys are the ones who help keep me motivated to carry on. I would love to hear your reasons for loving writing so share your own link for an article if you can! We need to support each other. The more the merrier! Stay safe and stay writing, troops!