Why Do I Write?

Why do I write? Seems like it should be an easy question, doesn't it?

Except it's not. Writing doesn't pay the bills, and with a two-child family and a disabled wife, that pressure falls on me. It's not like I have a rabid legion of fans who hang upon my every word, whose adulation feeds me a cocaine-esque rush. I have no extraordinary gift with words such as Hemingway, Shakespeare and Byron had. I'm not in love with my own cleverness, writing to dance with words simply to show off how witty I am.

I could tell you of the formative incidents in my life, that made me into the person I am. The abandonment, being a victim of abuse and a misfit, the tragedy of perpetuating the cycle of abuse, the disillusionment and despair of a man who faith failed and virtue became meaningless to. I could speak of the loneliness, the yearning, the misunderstandings.

I could speak of the gifts I've been given in great measure. The sensitivity, the Empathy, the facile intelligence. The insatiable hunger for knowledge, the ability to recall, the ability to perform, to tell stories.

I could tell you all of these things, and they are parts of the why. But the greatest portion of why is very simple. I write because I must.

It is as natural as breathing, and as necessary to me.