The National Day on Writing, and Why I Write

Today is the National Day on Writing. It was established by the National Counsel of Teachers of English. Pretty cool, huh? It’s even approved by Congress.

From their website: “Why a National Day on Writing? In light of the significance of writing in our national life, to draw attention to the remarkable variety of writing we engage in, and to help writers from all walks of life recognize how important writing is to their lives, NCTE established October 20 as The National Day on Writing.”

SheWrites.com has asked its members to post a mini writing manifesto 140 characters or less on why we write. Mine is: “I write to explore the world and share what I find.” I don’t just mean this in a literal sense. I love to travel and explore the physical world, but even more importantly, I love exploring the world of emotion, of personality, of human interaction. Being able to share my discoveries with my readers makes the exploration even more important and powerful.

One of the reasons I haven’t been updating much lately is because I’m taking Kristen Lamb’s “Blogging for Author Brand” course. I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about my blog, the subjects I’ve been writing about, and what direction I want to take the blog in the future. So, there will definitely be some shifts occurring in terms of my content.

I still want to blog about writing. But I also want to start thinking beyond the world of writing and turn my blog into more of an open dialogue than a writing guide. It’s going to be difficult because I’ve immersed myself in the writing world for so long. I’m in a Writing MFA program, I’m part of two writing groups (one of which I lead), most of my friends online and in real life are writers.

Writing is so important to me, but it’s not all I am. And I think it’s important to explore other parts of myself. If I’ve learned anything from writing, it’s that people are complex, and they’re never just one thing. In the spirit of my “Why I Write” manifesto, I’d like to start exploring my world on this blog, and share what I find with my lovely readers.

Why do you write? I’d love to hear your personal writing manifestos.