Why do I write?

I was talking to my friend on the phone the other day and started talking about what makes me want to write. When I was younger I was driven by the dream of becoming the next J.K Rowling (along with a gazillion other young writers with stars in their eyes)I wanted fame! I wanted money! I wanted to be able to write full time for a living and to be able to go into bookstores and find my books on the shelves.

When I got older I slowly realised that the chances of me being able to make even a decent living off writing were very slim. The chances of me ever reaching J.K Rowling popularity were even MORE slim. I stopped writing to try and be famous. It took time but eventually even the idea of qutting my job to be a full time writer stopped being appealing to me.

Why? Because I knew having all that time to write would probably kill my love of writing. Writing can be very boring sometimes. I will do it for hours and on most days do about 500 words. When I get bored I stop. I learnt a long time ago not to force myself to write. Other writers would call me lazy. I have tried pushing myself to write in the past. It stressed me out and made me get writer's block. You cannot force yourself to be creative. It has to come naturally. I believe the best way for that to happen is to make writing FUN.

And that means not doing it every second of every day. I have days off. I don't do it at night after work. I will maybe write a sentence and then have a 30 minute break. Yeah, it takes me forever to finish a project, so what? At least I finish my projects. Alot of writers don't. I don't care about writing speeds. I see alot of people on the net who proudly claim they can write a novel in a week. Good for them. I wonder how much of what they have written is any good?

Why do I write? For fun. If I don't write at all I am bored. If I write too much it gets boring. It's a delicate balance for me.

Will I ever be super successful? Probably not. Do I care? Yes and no. I want to continue to get published and I will promote what I do manage to get published like crazy. Will I ever be able to live off my writing? I doubt it. But that's okay. For reasons I do not know my brain requires me to do this. It needs this creative outlet. So as long as I continue to find this thing fun I will continue to write.