I write because I need to, because something inside tells me I must. It’s an impulse deeper than most of my survival instincts—since I can write through extreme hunger, thirst, and sleep deprivation—because the words have to be written. And this need to write isn’t fleeting; it is always there.

 

            From the time I was a child, I have always loved to read. I craved the words that my mother and father read to me. Words had power over me, and it only grew as I got older, until I found my power over words. Now, each book I read fuels my desire to command the words in my own way, my reading pushing me to be writing.

 

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The serif font slips and slurs before my eyes. I’ve been reading for so long. The words continue on. The textbook will never end. The publishers have found a way to enfold an entire universe between two cardboard covers of an educational edition. I check the reading assignment again. The number of pages I am supposed to read has increased in the last few minutes. My eyes reluctantly return to the right page and move back and forth over the lines, managing to read more. But I should be writing.

 

I need to write.

 

I write because I love stories. Each new character is a new person to learn about and learn from. I want to capture the essence of every new character. Who are they? Why are they? I want to see where they are and inhabit that space, if only for a short time. I want to travel with them, to places I can only imagine and may never see beyond the more-travelable universe hidden in my mind.

 

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            I’m driving and there’s a song on the radio; I want to write it into a story. I can see the characters in my mind as my foot taps to the rhythm. The plot rolls out before me along the rough asphalt of the road. I can’t write while I drive. I suppose that would be worse than employing my fingers to text or maneuvering mascara along my eyelashes. But I want to be writing.

 

I need to write.

 

I write to make sense of the world. That sounds cliché, and maybe it is, but I believe it is true. When I write, I can glimpse the good and battle with the bad. Maybe, I even lay down my pen with a greater understanding of the things that happen in reality.

 

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I slam down my cell phone, only allowing myself a passive peek, pretending I don’t care if it is broken upon the floor. An argument with my boyfriend. I hate fighting, which is probably why I never like to write conflict into my stories. With my anger boiling in my bloodstream, all I can do is pull out a pad of paper and write. The characters have no names, but I can see them. I can feel them. The phone rings. It’s him. I pick it up to finish the fight, having found some clarity in my few minutes of writing.

 

I need to write.

 

I write to ease my mind. Sometimes I get swept away by my own thoughts, planning too much, worrying even more. Writing takes all the emotion, stress, and focus I was employing for useless enterprises, like fretting about the future and overanalyzing absolutely everything, and utilizes it to form the words. The words—that speak louder to me than actions, to reverse the saying.

 

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Steam seeps from the shower, and my mind wanders beneath the water. A moment of clarity, and I start to draw a story. Suddenly, characters and plot and sentences that I struggled to find during countless attempts before come slowly to me. It is not a rush of epiphany, but a stream of inspiration. The shower: the only place I might not find a notebook and a pen. But I wish I was writing.

 

I need to write.

 

I write to capture moments. Even as I’ve been writing these words, I watched a young man walk across a room, with a stride illustrating an important direction. He walked to the corner of the large, white room to kiss a young woman tenderly on the forehead, turn, and move away again. Watching, I realized I am a writer. Writers see spectacular things in the mundane. In a small gesture, I saw notebooks full of words I could tie together with the emotion of a single, simple instant I was witness to on a normal Wednesday.

 

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I stand before an Impressionist painting. The scene is cloudy, and a lone, dark figure can almost be made out somewhere deep in the piece. There’s a story here. I know, as a writer, that there is a reason this character is alone, swept up in a swirl of clouds and sand. If I stay here long enough, maybe I will hear the whispers of the story. I believe it would be worth writing. I want to write it.

 

I need to write.

 

My fingers itch for my pen—not a pencil—I only write in pen. I don’t know why. My obsessiveness screams at scribbles on a page in any other instance, but when I write, I somehow stand it. I have so much I want to write. It goes beyond a desire—it’s a compulsion. I need to write. I have to write. What about? I don’t know. But I should be writing.