Why Writing Matters

I realize it has been far too long. Life has been a constant blur of places, people, and things. I recently found myself wondering why I do what I do. Why do I write? Why do I try so hard to make time for something like writing? I have been writing a daily writing journal for one of my genre workshops and I thought I'd share one of my writings. Remember, this is rough, but I feel like it shows, at least to myself, why I write.

"To write is to breathe. To put words on a page is to live not once, but twice. To read the words on the page is to live an infinite amount of lives. Those who do not write surely live, yet never quite fully. Like lungs only half full, the breath is shallow and therefore the life can only be half lived.

Writing is necessary. As necessary as breathing, as water on a humid day, as sunlight in the dark. To write is to know who you truly are. Without writing, we are lost creatures, unable to learn from the past, unable to live in the present, and unable to safeguard our future.

Writing is silent screaming, bloodless bleeding, and dry sobs pouring out onto the page, like messy finger paints of a toddler. The writer has only one option and it is to write. To ignore the urge, to stifle the passionate longing within oneself is almost equal to a quiet death. Words must flow, must be written. For if we, the human race, forgo writing and pursue the sciences, the nine to five jobs. To be doctors, lawyers, teachers, students – all honorable, all needed and beautiful aspects of the human existence.

Yet if we forgo writing. If we strangle the passion with reason. If we delete and backspace our needs, our wants, our desires…

If we forget our past in the pursuit of our future. If we no longer write, then we can no longer live. If the human race goes on, but does not write…

Then we are lost."