Reasons Why I Write

This is meant to set and remind myself of my intentions for writing. Mostly so I don’t fall into the trap of writing for attention or praise (not that I get any).

To Organize My Thoughts

I tend to write about the ideas that rumble around in my head for a while. And when I put them into words, it turns out they aren’t nearly as coherent as they were inside my mind. So, writing is a way for me to organize these thoughts – to make them as cohesive in the real world as they are in my head.

To Converse With Myself

David Whyte calls a great conversation “where you overhear yourself saying things that you didn’t know that you knew.” Writing can act like a conversation with myself, where these types of things emerge. The things I didn’t know I knew.

To Honor My Thoughts

For me, writing is an exercise in ushering my interior world into the exterior… which in some way feels like it’s honoring and respecting the interior version of myself, giving it permission to exist more fully and to show itself more.

For Instructions

When I’m in the flow with writing, it feels like it’s coming out of me. Like it’s something my fingers are doing, not my mind – it’s not like I’m scripting what to write inside my head before it emerges. It simply emerges.

And so, it feels like I’m accessing something outside of myself when I write. I don’t know if that’s what I believe is really happening, but that’s what it feels like. And oftentimes when I write, especially in a reflective setting, what emerges seem like instructions. So I treat them as such.

To Make Connections

When I write about one idea, it’ll typically make me think “that reminds me of this idea I heard on this podcast” or in this book or this poem, etc. Writing is a tool for me to connect disparate ideas in a way that may be helpful or novel.

Reasons Why I Publish

It Feels New

Something that no one has said before, at least not in this way.

It Feels Counter-Intuitive

Something that isn’t obvious at first glance. Something that reframes my perspective on life, even if in only a small way.

It May Help One Single Person

Something that has been truly helpful in my life, and I can see it having the same sort of impact for someone else. In that case, it’s my duty to get it to them.