why write

9 reasons for (non)writers//prompts + practices

Today I thought I’d address a question some of you may be asking yourself or wishing you could ask me—the elephant in the substack, so to speak:

why write?

it’s such a basic, fundamentally sound question that it’s easy to shrug off with an emphatic duh. Because we—all of us—are storytellers! For as long as i can remember, this has been my guiding principle. I realize it’s not so for everyone. At almost every retreat or workshop I lead, people tell me sheepishly, Oh, i’m not a real writer. And I realize they must have a different idea about what writing is and why we do it.

So why do we write if we are not “writers"—that is to say, if we don’t earn a living, at least in part, from our writing? What is the purpose of a creative practice?