People ask me all the time why I write.

Many times I have thought about it. But it never occurred to me to actually answer the question.

Why do I write?

I write to understand the world I live in. I write to exist in the world I live in. I write to create a little space for me to exist in this world I live in. For as long as I can remember, words on paper have been means of communication from my brain to the outside world. Anything I could not verbally communicate could be done with a pencil in hand.

I write to release. I write to liberate my curious mind. My mind races at warp speed like a busy freeway in the middle of Rush Hour traffic. One idea to another coming at me from every which way. I’m amazed my head stays still from all the ideas entering.

My writing is my way of draining all these thoughts in ways that are useful. No idea goes to waste but only the worthwhile ideas become stories that become drafts. Those drafts then become edited and proofed. They then get published and are out there for the world to read.

I write to tell stories. Compelling episodes of the human experience. Some are my own. Some have been what I have either seen or heard at first hand. Others have come out of pure curiosity. Experiences I may never have to endure but others do.

I write to tell a truth. I write to reveal something often overlooked. I write for those who can’t. Those who have stories that remain untold. Their truths lying in the margins. I found in writing truths many reach a freedom unlike ever before. I write to reach a freedom I have never experienced before.

I write to question. I write to answer. I write to tame. I write to liberate. I write to move forward. I write to go back. I write to laugh. I write to cry. I write to live. I write to die. I write to die so that I may rise and begin to write again.

When I write, I leave myself and enter into the life of someone else. Somewhere else. I have lived many lives through my writing. I’ve been to the four corners of the work without ever leaving my bedroom.

I found that if I stopped writing, I would stop living. If I stopped writing, the Rush Hour freeway that is my brain would stall and become vacant. Nothing would remain but orphaned thoughts and lost underdeveloped ideas. If I stopped writing, I would suffer a death in life. My soul would dry up. I would lose all feeling in my heart and hands. I would be alive in the sense that my anatomy would still be working properly but I would just be there.

If I stopped writing, I would lose my place in this world I worked so hard to create for myself. My village made for me and only me would be raided and sieged and be lost forever.

I write so that I never lose myself. I write to remind myself every moment of every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every year that I exist.

People ask me all the time why I write.

This is what I tell them…