Why I Write....

I still have the first story I ever wrote.
I was 6 years old. It was a short story about a snail that got picked-on by a bigger snail. I totally forgot about it until my grandmother handed it to me a few years back. She found it while cleaning out a drawer. It sits on my bookshelf to this day. 
A few weeks ago, I sat down and read it, then wondered about what made me write such a story. I'm sure some kid was giving me trouble in school. In fact, I know that's why I wrote it. I still remember the kids name. 
A part of me wondered if this incident was why I started writing in the first place? I have no memory of writing before that, though I was quite young...
I thought about it and realized writing is a sort of escape for me. A place I can go and live in my own universe. A universe where I'm in control.  Thanks Mr. Burns...

I'm sure my fellow writers can relate. Writing, for me, is a way to add some structure to the chaos of life. And, the chaos of my mind.
It's also a way to entertain myself. 

When I was a kid, I would set up my lego castle, grab the family video-recorder, and write little stories. Then I would go through the pain-staking process of making 'Stop & Go' movies. 
(Then make my family watch the finished product, which I'm pretty sure was even more painful... for them)

But, it was the writing part of the process that I enjoyed the most. I loved creating maps of my own fictional worlds, then having the characters go on adventures. It was fun to send reluctant hero's into strange worlds, where they had to battle menacing villains and monsters.

So... I write to escape , to entertain myself , and... because I was born to do it . 

I think Joan Rivers said it best: 
(WARNING: might be inappropriate for young ones)  
"It's a calling"

And that's the thing. For me, and most writers, it's a calling. Something inside us that we can't control. We do it because we love it more than anything else. Most of us don't even make a living doing it. We would love to, but we don't. And still, we go on... writing. And I think that's a beautiful thing.
We are the music makers,And we are the dreamers of dreams,Wandering by lone sea-breakers,And sitting by desolate streams;—World-losers and world-forsakers,On whom the pale moon gleams:Yet we are the movers and shakersOf the world for ever, it seems. - Arthur O'Shaughnessy