Today, for their Road Trip Wednesday feature, YA Highway asked: What’s your numero-uno reason for writing?
I feel like what I should be responding with is ‘to be read’. Because that’s what we all want, right? To have people read our stories, love our worlds, remember our characters.
(Alternatively, some might say they write because they enjoy it – but I’m a firm believer that sometimes you hate writing, hate your stories and hate the words that come out on the page–and this is all a necessary part of the struggle to improve your own work.)
But the head, the heart and the gut all agree that this isn’t why I started writing, and it isn’t why I still do it. I write because story ideas and characters show up in my head and I think: ‘That’s really cool. I want to share that.’
I write because these are the kind of stories I love – and the books I would read and obsess over for weeks afterwards. These are the stories that would dig deep into my mind and make me ask questions, and the characters that I’d want to know in real life.
The old writing adage definitely holds true for me: I write the books I want to read.
(And the books I think other people will want to read, too. Because I have fantastic taste. ;P)
EDIT TO ADD: A fitting and very true image…
