Five, that’s the number of novels that I have in progress. I am a writer, no, more that. The very role of the writer implies something more: communicator, storyteller, word master, grand designer, world builder. These are the things that we writers do. We raise up leaders, forge nations, overcome evil, establish good. We write. Many things bind us together. Writing is a community that, to outsiders, is rather strange, but for its members it is a sacred contract. When the clueless masses ask us about our work, we try to respond as politely as possible to questions that show such blatant misunderstanding for our trade. But there is one question that every writer chafes to answer: “Why do you write.”

This question seems an insult from the start. If one has any merit as a writer, then one’s purpose should be evident from their writing, and the questioner is insinuating that he or she can’t grasp that purpose. After we understand that they are asking about our motivation, we are appalled by the expectation that we must rationalize our work. An engineer is not asked why he chose his trade; that knowledge, it seems, is required only of the arts. But why must we struggle to explain our intentions, our passions? It is not right for a creative mind to have to rationalize his design. It came from his mind, his muse, his God, or from wherever the writer draws his inspiration. Must we lay out the innermost reaches of our thoughts for all to see? Yet, despite the obscenity of this question, it will continue to be asked, and for that reason, I will struggle to answer that dreaded inquiry as to why I write.

I can easily trace the start of my writing career. In 6th grade, I endeavored to write a riddle about a phoenix. However, in keeping with my modern style, my explanation carried on far too long. The riddle I had written was not of proper length to be a riddle, nor short prose; the only possible direction it could go was the way of a hero’s journey. From this short excerpt, I created the concept of The Phoenix Chronicles, a piece that is nearing completion today. Since that time I have begun four other novels, many of them interconnected, I have written several expository pieces, and have published my writings online. While my technical work has received more praise than my narrative writing, I continue my venture to produce a fictional masterpiece. In that respect, one might say that I write for accomplishment, but I believe that composes but a small portion of my purpose.

For a more complete answer, we must look to the message I seek to convey. Shortly after I discovered my rudimentary literary skills, I resolved to use this gift to further the Kingdom of God. Drawing inspiration from Bryan Davis, a religious fiction author, I began to craft tales riddled with the message of the Gospel. My writing became an act of worship. Through it, I gave thanks to and glorified my God, and I sought to share my testimony with the world. My motives are not purely religious in nature, however. I have also created works that, while they still carry religious undertones, are not chiefly Christian fiction. These pieces serve two purposes: first, they will help to spread my writing outside the Christian community; secondly, they will provide me with a supplementary income in the event that the religious work doesn’t sell well. So, I write to spread my beliefs and to earn a living, but that probably doesn’t fully answer the proposed question.

Isn’t it commonly accepted that writers have some personal reason for writing? Don’t they all write from some personal experience? While I don’t believe that that is a prerequisite, I do have a third reason for writing. Somewhere along the way, reading lost its luster. In some ways school, and its dissection method of reading, destroyed the solace I found in exploring new worlds, in others the shift of my interests and reallocation of my time did that. Regardless of the reason for it, reading was not the escape it used to be. I began to look for another way to leave this world, and I found it with writing. Writing allowed me not only to travel to a different world, but also to create that world. I now had the control. I found that I could tell stories to myself even if they had no chance of getting published. I built kingdoms, designed personalities, and started conflicts. I found my joy in the craft, the actual craft of writing.

My full answer to this question wasn’t fleshed out in this composition. How could it have been? I don’t have the full answer to it. What I do know is that the answer is different for all of us, and not one of us has it just one answer to. Perhaps the real reason we fear this question is because it forces us to get out the root cause of our tendencies, our styles, and our writing as whole, and we might not like what we see. But whatever the reason for our writing, it doesn’t change the art that we perform. The piece reads the same whether the reason behind it is known or not. What does matter is what we write, and how we write, and most importantly that we do write.