Why I Write

It started when I first learned how to write the letters of the English alphabet. I don’t remember it, but my parents told me that I would write down random letters, and ask them if it was a word. For some reason I thought that the more letters I added, the more likely it would be an actual word.

Once I could read I would devour books. They were an escape from the world, and reading about characters in books and their adventures helped me feel like I wasn’t so alone. Up until I was 13 I loved reading, and I loved fictional worlds for escapism. I still enjoy reading, but I don’t read to the same extent that I used to when I was younger.

When I was 11, almost 12, I was trying calculus for the first time. My parents didn’t expect me to succeed at it, given that I was so young, but I didn’t know this, and after 5 miserable weeks of barely understanding it, I found out that my dad was going to try writing a book for Camp NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). I asked him if I could stop trying to learn calculus if I wrote a book instead, and he agreed and told me that he was surprised that I had stuck with the math for that long. He was probably even more surprised when I wrote over 50,000 words in a month, on a first draft of a story that would never have a second. For that whole month that was all I worked on. After I ate my breakfast I would begin writing, and I would keep going until I hit my writing goal. Most days this took quite a bit of time.

But after that, I knew that I could never stop writing.

Sure, I’ve taken breaks from writing. But I can never stop. I can never quit writing.

In 2017 I decided to start blogging. At the time I flitted between wanting to be a professional artist or a novelist when I grew up, but I knew I wanted a blog to start growing an audience. Since then I’ve written and published over 200,000 words worth of blog posts, on various topics.

But it was in 2019 that I decided to start blogging about fashion and body types. I knew being a professional artist wasn’t for me, drawing with a deadline made me dislike the process of making art, and all the time that I spend practicing just made me feel stuck and sore. And I was also stagnating when it came to writing fiction as well. I just wasn’t have fun with it like I did when I was younger. So on a whim I decided to start writing about something that I found interesting. Something that made me feel pretty and that made me happy.

This is why I write. Because it’s something that makes me happy. Because it’s something that I can have fun with, and that I enjoy.

Lately it’s been difficult for me to remember why I write. So I wrote this post to remind myself of why I do this, and why I can never stop. I hope that if you’re reading this, you have something like this too. Something that makes you happy, and that you always return to, even after you take a break from it.