Inspired by "A Letter to Deb Clow" by Terry Tempest Williams (look it up!  It's amazing!), my fellow members of Writers Anonymous and I set out to pen our own declarations.  Every day I discover a new reason why writing is as essential as breathing...

 "Why I Write"

I write because I love it – truly, madly, deeply.  It is a pure and simple answer, but an honest one.   I have loved it since I was old enough to pick up a crayon and scrawl a few lines across a piece of construction paper, trying to recreate that mysterious alphabet.  I found then, as I find now, a startling magic in the idea that I can take my words and capture them, blow them like dandelion seeds out into the big world.

   I write because I am not brave.  I write because I am not much of a talker.  Once painfully shy, still occasionally awkward, I write because it is somehow easier than forming words with lips and tongue.  I can’t explain why it is that writing comes so much more naturally to me, but it often feels as though my fingers know best how to speak from the heart.  I write because it is my way of expressing myself.

  I write to destroy my perfectionist nature.  I write because sometimes I can put my hand on the page and let it go, turn off my chattering critical mind, and just WRITE – even when I think I have nothing to say – and some strange force takes hold of my pen and runs away like an out-of-control horse.  I feel that some unstoppable power is writing right through me – and I like it.  I write because sometimes it is refreshing to let the universe take over.  I write to rediscover that there are words waiting to be spoken in the deep places of my soul.  I write to surrender.

   I write because I am an artist and language is my medium.  I play with words like beads on a string, delighted when they fuse together into something harmonious, something that goes beyond the ordinary.  I write because I want to share that harmony with the world.  I write because I believe that stories can change lives.

   I write to let it all bleed out into ink – my fears, my fantasies, my darkest secrets and brightest dreams.  I write because sometimes I think I’m going crazy and the page is the only place I can find sense.  I write because it is healing, because it is my path to peace, to clarity, to sanity.  I write to right things.  I write to find my way back to what fuels my fire, connects me, soothes me, excites me, empowers me, paints my sky, makes me whole, makes my clock work, makes my heart beat!  I write because it is my form of prayer, my sanctuary.  I write to escape.  I write to come home again.

   I write because it is the grandest adventure I know.