This is #19, and the topic is thanks to a comment from Mike Baltar. A comment, I will admit, I didn’t see until recently because my website didn’t email me and my comment widget doesn’t appear to be working properly.

If there are any topics you’d like me to tackle, feel free to comment, and help me justify the energy I’ll be spending on manually looking at comments until I get my technical issues resolved.

Personal News

This was a rough week at work, even though it was only 4 days long. There’s so much to do and not enough time or energy in the day. Plus, there are some complications with work that have me in an awkward position. I’m going to have to work quite a bit this weekend to get caught up. Given how I’ve had to be “on” for several weeks in a row now, without a real break, I think I’m setting myself up for a sudden and inevitable crash.

Upcoming Events and Such

Boskone is still the next conference. Checking my email, it seems I’ve already paid for Norwescon, too, which I believe is in March. I’m sure I haven’t purchased plane tickets yet, and I doubt I have a reservation for the hotel. I’ll need to take care of those things soon.

The Topic: Why Write?

I’m one of those people that must write. The depression is real when I go long periods without creative writing. This blog challenge helps to stabilize me and make more productive at work. I need to do more, but I don’t have the time.

If I didn’t fall into depression without it, would I still write? Absolutely. It’s more than a hobby for me, and not quite a career. It’s part of my identity. Also, and this is important: I just really like doing it.

As a kid, I was a voracious reader from an early age. When I was around 12, I tried writing, and it felt like I was reading a story into existence. It delighted me then, and it delights me now.

Writing doesn’t have to be expensive. If your wrist is up for it, you can grab a pen and start filling a cheap notebook with your words. It’s what I used to do, but all of those early stories are lost and gone. I like my writing to be a bit more durable these days, so I save it digitally and back it up all over the place.

At Arisia, I met and spoke with people that were just beginning to write, or had a desire to write but had not yet taken the plunge. I offered encouragement to all of these people. If you have even a whiff of desire to write, you should do it!

Why, though? Why do I encourage people to do this thing that I do?

Writing is magical. A writer draws upon their imagination, channels it through the language center of their brain, into their hands, and onto the page. Then a reader comes along, consumes the words with their eyes or ears, and the transfer is complete. From one person’s imagination into another’s, crossing a potentially vast gap in time and space.

Writing is creation. Writing is love. Writing is perhaps the most uniquely human thing in the known universe.

Like most art, when you sit down to write, you’re committing some part of yourself into a medium that can potentially outlast you. It can be a form of immortality, as long as there are those around that are willing to read your words.

I’m not sure what else I can say about it. Writing is good. I prefer to write fiction, because stories are fun and endearing, but I’ve perused old letters which transported back in time. I have read instructions that saved me headaches. I have read articles and obituaries and synopses and blogs and all sort of things that have sparked an emotion or made me think.

Without writers, readers would have nothing to read.

If you want to write but you’re afraid, or you don’t know how to begin, let me know and I will help you. For free! I just think writing is neat.