On Why I Write

The question authors get asked the most: “Where do you get your ideas?” That’s easy to answer, really: large overdoses of caffeine and sugar combined with an overactive imagination. The second question I personally get asked the most is “Why do you write?”

That one is a little tougher to answer. The quick and humorous answer is that my deteriorating health and allergies prevent me from doing any kind of physical work. But it goes deeper than that. It’s actually easier to explain reasons why I don’t write.

I don’t write stories to make a statement. I don’t write stories to be analyzed. I write for entertainment value. Allow me to tell you a little story that I think best illustrates what I mean.

Back in 8th grade the literature teacher hosted a week-long analysis session on what was then my favorite poem: The Raven, by Edgar Allen Poe. We analyzed structure, rhyming, and phonetic patterns, and by the time that week was up I hated The Raven. We had analyzed it to death. All of the magic and mystery was gone and I can never read that poem without that session coming to mind and interrupting my enjoyment of the work.

It was at that point I realized why I don’t write (I’d already written my first novel by then). I never want my stories to be over-analyzed and destroyed like The Raven was for me. I write stories so that people can forget their troubles and simply enjoy a good book.

If just one person, only one, gets lost in my universes and forgets the real world for a little while, then I will consider myself a successful author. If just one person looks up at the clock and realizes it’s much later than they thought, how on Earth could they have been reading so long??…then I am a successful author.

I write to escape to other worlds, and I hope that others escape with me.