I love people-watching; writing stories is the ultimate way to apply the knowledge I have acquired, and watch the characters respond in exciting ways.
I’m more than a little bit sadistic when it comes to fictional entertainment. Putting characters into terrible positions and then making things get worse leaves me cackling. Literally. With perverse glee.
Books were one of my first loves. My memory isn’t so great for detail, which means I get to make myself the stories I want to read, and still feel some excitement and amazement when I reread the work after a while.
I have ideas, whether I want to or not, so it’s really gratifying to be able to put them to use. I feel an overwhelming sense of pride when I look upon something I’ve written. I’ve used my time well. I’ve been stubborn and persistent and it’s culminated with something awesome.
Just some of the reasons I am a writer! What about you?
~A
The Fane 
I both want and need to write. Creating worlds and characters provides an enormous amount of freedom. Like you, I get perverse glee in dropping my characters into shitty situations then making things so much worse for them. “Take that! And that!” I like seeing what my characters are made of, whether they can survive what I throw at them. It’s the print-version of a video game. 🙂
Exactly! There’s endless possibility, and it’s just so exciting. 😀
~A
As John Lennon put it: words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup; they slither wildly as they slip their way across the universe.
Ideas keep appearing in my head, & a lot of them are really good ideas, & I have to keep as many from disappearing into the aether as I can.
Or, in summary: CAN’T STOP WON’T STOP.
Oh my goodness, YES. Doesn’t that just capture it perfectly? 😀
~A
Great post!
I both want and need to write; I’ve always loved reading and when other kids were out playing, I’d be sitting in my room reading (or playing Diddy Kong Racing with my grandpa on our N64/Ocarina of Time alone). I started writing when I was fairly young, too, and it kept developing from there. 🙂
Thanks! Reading and experiencing other interactive story media like video games is definitely a huge contributing factor!
~A
That’s an interesting question, albeit a complex one. One of the thousands of reasons I am a writer is because my mind thinks too much and I feel too much. So writing helps me to build something out of that. A world of characters, thoughts, events, ideas. Another reason why I like to write is to be creative. If I don’t create, I feel incomplete. Writing also allows me the unique opportunity to feel what it is like to be in somebody else’s shoes. That can be a life transforming experience if you take it seriously.
I couldn’t agree more! Truly putting yourself into another’s situation (especially in a story where you tend to put those characters in some pretty trying places) can change the way you see the world.
~A
I once dedicated an entire blog post to this subject… and still couldn’t settle on the real answer. I eventually grew so dissatisfied with my list that I deleted the post. I just can’t pin down the answer that feels most important to me, although I agree with all of the reasons you’ve listed here. And maybe that is the answer: It’s a series of happy coincidences and traits that led me to writing.
Haha, that’s why there’s a “1” in the title; I intend on adding to the list every so often. 😉 The reasons are vast and interconnected, or sometimes, very detached but integral all the same. There’s never one single motivating factor, and that in itself is a reason! 😀
~A
Not sure why. I just took another month-long break, but something drew me back to it all. Wouldn’t you think we’d choose an easier way to spend our time? Hope all is well in your world, Ashlee.
There’s something a little otherworldly and uncontrollable (and obsessive) about writing which I think will always bring us back. 🙂 Things are pretty awesome right now, I hope you’re doing well, too, Sherry!
~A
I write. If I failed to, I would get indegestion.
S. Thomas Summers
Author of Private Hercules McGraw: Poems of the American Civil War
And a wise choice to continue writing, then. 😉
~A
LOL @ the perverse glee of putting perfectly nice characters through living hell! I might have a bit of that in me too! 😉
Why else? Because I have all these characters living in my head, talking, fighting, making out, doing horrible things to each other, and if I didn’t write this stuff down, I’d just be laughing to myself (or otherwise sobbing) and people would look at me like I was crazy! (Maybe we are in fact crazy, but we get to call ourselves writers instead, lol!)
Ooooh yeah, that’s a good one! Giving ourselves the socially acceptable excuse for having conversations with ourselves. I must admit, I have been caught laughing suddenly, and explained to the person I had just thought of something good to write. 😉
~A
I love this post and how you describe why you write — I’m a people watcher too so I can relate (sadistic with characters…. yes, I suppose I am that too, a bit…) But why I write? I’m tempted to give as my answer that always-annoying one: that I can’t help myself. But the crazy thing is it’s true. I write stories in my head, I think of stories as I see things happen, and as soon as any event happens in my life I wonder how I’ll write about it. I guess the fact is it’s hard wired….
Thanks, Julia! I would distill that fact even further and say we’re storytellers by an intrinsic nature, and it’s therefore most reasonable to write what’s already going on in our heads! Stories are a lifeforce within us. Refining the stories through writing is a necessity. 😀
~A