Why I Write

Post date: Apr 06, 2016 2:10:50 PM

I don't know why, but stories bounce around in my head all day. Ideas form from simple things that happen, anything can spark creativity. But, stories are something different. They are living, breathing things. They yearn to pull you in and never let go. They desire companionship and need delicate care.

Perhaps that's why they are so difficult to craft.

They scamper through the wind, tumbling and rolling, free as butterflies. To catch one requires a net, but you can't touch their wings or they'll never fly again. To shape one requires intense focus and heat. A hammer to pound out imperfections and a fire to test it in. To mold it, a story needs soft whispers and kind smiles.

It learns, it grows, it becomes. A story can ply you, it can steal you away, it can even warn you, but what it shouldn't do is push you away.

The balance to nurture the story and form it compete.

I write because I can't not. Words pour forth unbidden. They escape and die in the wild or the page captures them. A day without writing feels wasted, somehow less bright. To give it up, I would die.

There are many who would take up my hammer and forge a new story. Many who could use my net to catch a story. But only one me to nurture it how I see it. To find its shape, hidden within itself.

Like a sculptor staring at a block of clay, a writer studies a blank page with pen in hand. Ready and waiting. The author knows the page has a shape inside longing to burst forth like a firework. It takes a precise mind to find it and an uninhibited soul to unleash it.

The tap-tap-tap on the keyboard, the scritch-scratch-scratch on the paper, those are the beats of my heart.