On Writing

The other day, I was in the children's publishing survey class I'm taking this semester and we were talking about different roles in the writing industry. Our professor asked people to raise their hands if they wanted to be an editor, then a writer, then an agent.

It blew my mind that not everyone had their hand in the air to say they wanted to be a writer. It didn't make any sense to me. At all. I'm still struggling to wrap my mind around the fact that there are people out there who don't want to write books. Which is silly. Obviously not everyone wants to write stories, but I guess some part of me felt that everyone in the world shared that passion with me.

As I've come to try to understand this little bit of information, I started thinking why writing is so important to me. I'm trying to understand the compulsion in my bones that draws me to my keyboard or to pen and paper. For me, at this point in my life, there is no greater release, no greater sense of satisfaction then crafting a good story.

It's like I have a set of friends who live in my mind, who whisper their stories to me and ask me to make them real. These characters are a part of me. They're the products of my creative mind and they are as real to me as my family, as my friends. Their pain is my pain. Their joy is my own. It's like I have access to a secret world that no one but me knows yet, like I have the adventure of learning their stories, their triumphs before anyone else. With them, I am never lonely, I am never bored. I'm grateful for the things in my life because I see what they lack. In writing, I learn about myself and the way I think and feel about things.

Writing is a greater rush than reading is. I could sit on a couch all day and read to my heart's content, but writing is powerful and emotional and hard.

And so very, very worth it.

Sometimes, when I'm working my way through a difficult scene or plot point, I want to pull my hair out. I want to give it all up, say nothing I'll write will ever amount to anything, so why even bother. I want to do something easy. But then there are times when writing comes to me as easily as breathing, when it's as steady as my heartbeat. There are times when characters spring from my fingertips, as alive and as fleshed out as anyone I could meet in real life. There are times when I can write thousands of words in the space of a few hours. There are times when creation swells in my bones and I know the beauty in all things. And in those moments, everything is right in the world. Everything fits together and my soul is at peace.

And I guess it makes me sad to think that there are people out there who don't get to know that thrill and joy that I do when I write. It makes me feel apart from the people around me when I realize I can do things they can't even fathom, and I can't help but think that the world would be a better place if people took the time to sit and think and write and create.

I don't know if I've done any of this justice. I probably haven't. Over the years, I've learned that I can't not write. No matter how hard it is, I keep coming back for more. I love the days when my only obligation is to sit and write.

There is beauty in the world all around us. Some people don't recognize it. Some people recognize it but can't communicate it. All I hope is that I never stop recognizing it and never stop trying to capture it with words.