The Need to Write

English: penulis = writer (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Do you have the need to write? That is what makes you a writer. Maybe you write novels or poems – or blogs (or a combination of these). Whether or not you share your works, you are a writer. For a writer, writing is like breathing – sometimes natural, sometimes labored, always necessary.

The need to write can manifest in many ways, including side-effects when you don't write. Me? I get restless and distracted if I do not have the chance to set words down every day. My family has come to accept that even on vacations, I need my writing time. When I don't write, I also become very talkative. This may because writing for me is a form of communication and sharing with other people.

I don't think the need to write is a simple one. For me, the need to communicate is bound up in my decision to write for publication. But I don't write for the sake of becoming published since I wrote for years without that goal. As a person with disabilities, writing is a way to give to the world. In a similar vein, writing also also mostly answers my need to create something that only I can make. Think back to the Poetry Sharing Event. Those poets all wrote to the same theme but every poem was different. Writers of every medium are the same.

I find it fascinating how the need to write can take so many forms. As far as I know, only authors, poets, and bloggers follow this blog but there are so many other wonderful types of writing. Writing – and products built on writing – fill our world. Even “non-readers” do not escape its reach entirely. Television relies on screen-writers, after all. Vocal music relies on lyrics.

I think it safe to say that the need to write has shaped our culture. Even though it sometimes that society is moving away from reading, there will always be a market for it. And there will always be a place for people who write, not for publication, but for solely themselves.