Why do I write?

I sometimes ask myself that question. Why do I write? I don't do it everyday like I should but I don't go a day that I am not thinking about writing and coming up with story ideas in my head that somehow disappears when I get home.

I look around and see the people who surround me and I make up little stories about them and their lives. It's so much fun to pretend that I know their real stories.

I was watching Game of Thrones last night and in one of the episodes, Sansa was sitting on the dock with her handmaiden, Shay and they were making up stories about the ships that were out in the water. I thought at first that Sansa was telling the truth until I realized she was just making up a story. So in a way I am like her, pretending that I know the truth.

Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction as they say and I think it's fun to delve into the true history and see what is fact and what is fiction. I have been "writing" since I was in the second grade when our second grade teachers had us write short stories about clowns and then about an animal. I didn't do so well on the clown one but I do kind of remember the story I wrote about a spider that was living in the corner of my room of my bedroom in my childhood home. Not that I can remember it all and then I think I had to re-write the story of the ant and the grasshopper and I don't think that came out well either but I did love when we were in junior high, I think, in literature class and we had free write or reading time. I loved that time. It was the best time for me because I love to read and I loved doing book reports when it dealt with authors because I got to learn something fascinating about them.

I try to keep a notebook around to write down ideas and there about a ton of stories I have started but not completely finished but I did get one completely finished two years later but I am working on the revisions and research now. I have tried to read about how to write but I am going with my instincts and go with my feelings of what comes out even if it doesn't make sense the first time and my grammar gets atrocious. That was not my thing in school, grammar or math or science. But I loved literature, because I got to read and escape to new places and history because I learned new things about our country and got to question why did we do what we did?

So for now I will persevere on writing and see where it leads me. Maybe one day I will be able to say see that book over there on the shelf along with the ones written by my favorite authors? I wrote that and I am damn proud of it.