writing

I write because when I do, I forget all else.  As my fingers bounce across the keys, as words tumble over each other to land in succession on the page, as letters become words become sentences become paragraphs, life becomes something that makes a little bit of sense.

To write makes my heart beat faster with the sheer invigoration of it.  It is my car racing, my bungee jumping, my watercolour.  It makes me more of what I am, the best version of myself.

There are days when ideas and concepts in my head that are jostling their way out of my little brain.  Characters….some real, some imagined and some real-imagined.  Each being born in the fog of science in my cranium, elbowing their way past treatment protocols, drug contraindications, suture properties, principles of wound healing.  Many of these men, women and yes, animals, never see the light.  Some underdeveloped and some not very interesting in the first place languish quietly before they can emerge into the world.  But a few remain, laying low, biding their time, building their strength until they can climb out onto my laptop.  Others form stories that blossom, give me hope, then whither like the end-of-day flowers at the railway station kiosk.  The ones that sell for half price to husbands who are home late again and couples who don’t like to turn up empty handed to dinner parties.  Perhaps one day a concept, an idea will take on a bigger life….one that makes it to my screen and eventually onto paper.

Why do I write? I write because that act of weaving words, of hitting keys to make people, places, animals and situations take shape is what allows me to call myself a writer.  I write because writing is like medicine for my soul.  Because what I have written may be all I ever leave behind, even if no-one ever reads it.  Writing allows me to start to un-jumble the mess that at times is life, to put it into simple words and complex sentences.  I write because sometimes the beauty and sorrow of life is so overwhelming that I need to reduce it to mere words to improve my grasp on it.  When I write, I at times escape reality and at other times embrace it.

I write for me.  I write to show you a piece of me.  To connect with you, even if it’s only through words on your screen.

I write because I am a writer.

Why do you write? And if you don’t, what is it that takes you to that happy place?

This is a blog hop and the lovely Kate of Raising Misters gave me the opportunity to participate.  Check out her post here.  The bloggers I am tagging are Amy from Milkteaxx, Zarine from Maybe in Madras and Tammi from Insatiable Munchies.  These ladies are very talented so do keep an eye out for their posts.