Writing Wednesday: Why Do You Write?

I absolute love writing. It feels freeing, and often like I'm channeling something. There is a fun creative energy that consumes me and takes over my life - kind of like the picture above. It feels amazing.

For many years, I didn't write, or only wrote essays for university. There was very little creativity there, or maybe there was, but of a different kind.

Then, a few years ago I took a creative muse course from the lovely and talented Janet Whitehead (feel free to check her out, she does on line and skype as well as in person classes) and started exploring with writing. Things seemed to come together, my thoughts gelled into fun ideas and poems; it was beautiful.

Later that year, a friend introduced me to Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month - check them out too, I can't say enough good about them) and I wrote a 50,000 word novel in a month. It was frantic and terrible writing and incredibly empowering. Since then, I've written several novels and am now working on editing.

I realize from all of this that, even though I didn't always know that I wanted to write, I always knew that I wanted a creative outlet, but didn't know how to go about it. Writing has done this for me, and has even led me to other creative pursuits. And I'm determined to break the next barrier and even get one of my novels out there for others to read (could be a little self sabotage involving why I have four unedited novels...).

So, why do you write? When did you start? Have you always wanted to write? What do you love most about it?