Why Write?

What is it about my dream that makes me do it? To be honest I was never really sure until recently. I grew up surrounded by words, but it wasn’t until much later in life that I picked up on writing as a hobby and future career path.

When I was young I wanted to make comic books. Yes, for real! My friends and I would sit around and draw for days and days and days making our own little comics on 8 ½ lined paper. Sometimes we would collaborate, each of us taking a page or sharing ideas about what our heroes would do next. I thought I was born to draw.

All throughout my education I leaned heavily on art classes. My favorite times of the day were when I could put down my text books and draw, or paint, or work with clay. This is what I thought my future career would be. Art. It was my passion and my life.

Things began to get complicated in high school, when I began to learn about video production. A new passion was growing, one that allowed me to use my technical knowledge and satisfied my artistic itch. When it came time to choose a major in college it wasn’t art, it was video. College saw my drawing fade, taking a backseat to video editing, photoshop and live production. I still got to be creative, just in a different way. Life though does funny things to us, even if we don’t realize it at the time.

My life as a video editor was never glamorous or all that fulfilling. I was working a low paying job splicing footage of insurance fraud. Sometimes I would get to create a training video or a how-to video. Always though I was yearning to do something bigger.

Looking back through my entire life I wanted to do one thing. When I drew a picture it was to tell a story. When I made a new video, I was telling a story. All of the screenplays, the short fiction I had made for class were there to tell stories. That is why I write. It is the only medium that I can tell my stories in. I can do it anywhere, at any time. There is no budget concern or special effects I need to worry about. I don’t need to get my characters hands drawn exactly right so they stop looking weird. I don’t need fancy gear. I don’t need a fancy education. All I need is an idea and a place to write it down. Why do I write? Because I want to tell the stories that have been building inside of me since I was little. I want to tell stories that make other people want to participate.

When I am down, I write. When I am happy, I write. When I can’t stand being me anymore I find solace in the lives of others. When this world gets ugly I take a trip to a new world, limited only by the things I can imagine. The thing is this is what I have always done, the drawing, the video production, the writing; all of them outlets for the same creative drive to tell stories. So why do I write? I guess you can say, because I always have.