As I went to start this post – one I’d been thinking about for a while – I was surprised how hard it was to articulate the “why” behind my passion for writing. Not because I didn’t know if it was true, but more so honing in on an articulation that would make sense.

Ultimately I arrived at a bulleted list because…well…it is me after all. I love my bulleted lists! It quickly became apparent there were 3 distinct reasons that have emerged during the decade+ I’ve been loving this activity:

CREATION is FUN!

If there’s one thing I have discovered as perhaps the primary driving force to write it’s that writing your own s**t is a lot of fun. Creating characters, worlds, scenes, environments, plots, narratives, emotions and more is satisfying in its own right. Each of those is a component to a larger objective and being able to effectively combine them into a story is what truly satisfies. Life – for all of us – is just one big story (or plethora of stories), after all!

A Different Sense of Accomplishment

Creating a lasting thing gives me a different sense of accomplishment than most other things in my life. Sure, hitting a specific metric at work is exciting! Beating a level in a videogame? Yay! Hitting a new PR at the gym? Awesome. But producing an artistic product leaves a sense of lasting achievement. It’s a source of pride that doesn’t go away; the ability to say “I made something!” While I’m just a small-time indie author (for now!) it does invoke a thought or two about one’s “legacy”… and how invigorating it is to think about your lasting impact.

“The Flow”

I’ll probably write an entire post about this at a later date, but much like a “runner’s high”, the “writer’s flow” is a very real sensation…dare I say, drug? Not every writing session gets into “The Flow”, but when you’re able to dedicate enough time and think about a scene faster than you can type it? DAMN! It’s intoxicating, often being what I look forward to the more I think about any story’s next sequence, chapter, or character interaction when I’m not writing.