A World in Perspective

Anyone who knows me knows I'm a writer. Similar to my gender or race, it's just WHO I am. I can't hide it, and I don't want to. Usually when people find out, they say, "Oh, that's cool," and proceed to ask WHAT I write about (which is a pretty hard question to answer without sounding completely bonkers, but I digress--only because most writers [myself included] are a little loony).

Today, however, I was asked a different question: "Dude, why?"

His face looked like this when he asked

Though I answered with a simple shrug, saying "Because...

 

internally, I was baffled by the question. I spent the rest of the day asking myself "why the hell do I write?" I mean, it's mentally draining, time consuming, and not financially rewarding. On top of that, once I finish a novel, I have to reread it until my eyes bleed, send it out for others to hack to pieces, then rewrite it until my fingers fall off. And don't let me get started on the querying process. 

If writing was sex, querying would be an STD

So WHY do I write? What makes all the BS that comes with it worth it?

For me, the answer lies in all that I've been through. I've experienced immense happiness and crushing sadness. At my lowest, I turned to fiction to raise my spirits. Novels became my escape; they showed me that the world held a lot more than what was going on in MY world. I read stories about  how people hurtled insurmountable obstacles, defeated unbeatable beasts, and became stronger and better than the person they were the day before. Those stories gave me hope. They gave me the strength needed to make it through the tough times. 

Those stories saved my life.

At my happiest (when I was idealistic and walking on clouds), fiction grounded me. I was reminded that the world wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. People were starving, suffering, being enslaved, being tortured... 

I was reminded that beauty is all about perspective...

 

Fiction taught me that the world CAN be beautiful from every point of view. But in order to accomplish that, I had to get my head out of the clouds. I had to bring my own form of beauty to the ugly parts of the world. 

And I do that through my writing.

My Best Friend Dead, DeadEarth, The Thieves Guild, Black Market Baby, Kids of Kingdom... every story that I have penned has a certain beauty to it. Even if that beauty is just pulling back the mask on the ugly.

I write because I have a dream that the entire world can live with their head in the clouds. And it would be rightly so. 

That's why I write, so why do you?