What motivates you to spend hour after hour after hour at the keyboard?

Why do you need to put words to paper?

Just as importantly, what makes you stick with it once you get started? Because writing a book is incredibly time-consuming, it would be easy to abandon it before it’s finished.

Yet, you’ve stayed with it, probably for months or even years.

Why Gloria Steinem writes

Journalist Gloria Steinem says she writes because it feels right. “Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else,” she says.

That’s how I feel about it, too. It feels like what I should be doing. Just as importantly, though, I write because I enjoy it. Sometimes, it’s even therapeutic.

It’s also my profession, which makes me a little different from many authors today. I majored in journalism and public relations in college. Unlike most, I’m still doing what I set out to do when I made a career choice as a high school senior.

Fortunately, it was the right choice for me. Nonfiction writing, whether it’s for this blog or for journalism assignments, helps me show others how to do something better or faster. It allows me to introduce readers to interesting people doing good work or to expose them to new ways of solving old problems.

Why do you write?

Do you know why you write?

I think that knowing why you do it might motivate you to stay with your current project, start a different one, or learn how to become better at it. That’s how it works with me, anyway. I sometimes have to remind myself of why I’m doing it, especially when I hit an obstacle or two.

I want to know about you.

Tell us in a comment: Why do you write? What do you hope your writing will accomplish? What’s your motivation? 

I’m looking forward to learning more about you through your answer.