JOAN DIDION:
[I]t took me some years to discover what I was.
Which was a writer.
By which I mean not a “good” writer or a “bad” writer but simply a writer, a person whose most absorbed and passionate hours are spent arranging words on pieces of paper. Had my credentials been in order I would never have become a writer. Had I been blessed with even limited access to my own mind there would have been no reason to write. I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.
-From “Why I Write” via LitHub
I recommend reading all of Didion’s “Why I Write”, and George Orwell’s too.
To write about why you write might seem trite or basic (not to Didion or Orwell, apparently), but part of being a writer means understanding why you do it — the what, where, how, and when. Swirled up in all of that is A WHY.
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