The Joy of Writing

I’ve been posting the past few weeks about the different parts of writing: narrative style, characters, outlining, writing every day. Today I’d like to go back to the very basics and share a few thoughts on the joy of writing.

This is where it all begins.

As a little girl, I wrote endlessly. Curiously (or not), all of my stories were about a little princess who went to the market. When I wasn’t stretching myself with my fiction, I was journaling almost every day.

I remember feeling that writing my thoughts down in a journal helped me feel calmer and at ease. I simply had to get all those thoughts and ideas out of my head! I still feel that way.

Writing, for me, equals focus. Most of the time my mind is racing, but not when I’m writing. Whether I’m fictioning or journaling, my mind is focused and calm.

Not only that, but I simply love stories! I always have and always will. It doesn’t matter if the story is in book form or movie form, serious or funny, well-done or cheesy, I love them all. I just love stories. I think they help us make sense of each other and our world. I think they can teach us a great deal. And I think sometimes a story is just a story and that’s perfect too.

Writing stories is my joy, my everything. I may even be addicted to it.

It’s helped me appreciate the complexities of real life and to not be afraid of them. And it helps me feel connected to others.

Writing is my joy because it helps me make sense of myself, and it helps me reach across a great divide and touch another’s heart. Writing, and telling stories, is telepathy, transmitting more than the words on the page.

It’s about connection.