Guest blog by L. Anne Carrington: Why do we write?

Why do we write? Is there a story that needs to be told, but yet not put down on paper? Do some of us aim to produce the next Great American Novel? Maybe we have a message that writing is an effective way to reach large groups of people, or perhaps it’s our own form of therapy (why do you think some psychotherapists encourage their patients to journal on a regular basis?)

Some love to write for fun, yet get paid at the same time, others only write one book just to say they’ve done it (maybe as part of a lifetime goal), and then there’s a handful of people who write for the sole purpose of earning income—they despise writing in general.

There’s a book in our heads waiting to be written, characters brought to life and shared with the world. Like painting, sketching, and sculpture, writing’s an art that creates a story with words rather than pencil, charcoal, paint, or clay.

When we’ve completed a book or story, a feeling of accomplishment and elation often felt, especially if months—and in many cases, years— were invested in writing, editing, and developing a book previously stored in our subconscious before coming to life, whether on pages or electronic readers.

There are authors exploring new subjects not previously tapped, others jumping on the latest trend, and yet more trying something original on their own. All the aforementioned may be instant hits or may fail on the market (given if the works get published), but one isn’t a writer if risks aren’t taken once in awhile.

Writing can be a hobby, a job, or something else altogether. During my early years, I wasn’t a person who could communicate feelings and thoughts well in the verbal sense, but hand me a notebook and pen (followed in later years by a typewriter, and then a PC with a word processing program), and I could express myself without thinking. At the age of eighteen, while I worked on my high school’s newspaper, I became enamored with writing on the journalistic level, and was the first staff member to be published in a major paper after, on a whim, I submitted a music review to one of the city’s newspapers.

Encouraged, I began producing other written work over the next several years, many published in both print and various websites, working my way up to The Wrestling Babe internet column in 2003, and a two-year stint as a music reviewer for Indie Music Stop. In between, I did “fun” writing, such as fan fiction, as a stress reliever, and in July 2008, I decided to push the envelope further by starting my first full-length novel, The Cruiserweight.

Like any other vocation or interest in the world, writing has its down side. We experience things such as writer’s block, rejection letters, naysayers who say that we can’t do it and are wasting our time, endless hours of editing, thinking of new ways to come up with marketing our works, and finding honest, yet constructive, critiques.

Still, we continue to write…but why? Because we can, and despite the drawbacks of our hobby (or vocation, whatever the case), we enjoy the challenges and the creative aspects writing brings, and the feelings of fulfillment and elation once a project’s completed and in print makes the entire journey of being a writer worthwhile…then we start all over again.

–L. Anne Carrington

L. Anne Carrington is the author of The Cruiserweight cc she also has her own excellent blog.