Thoughts on Why I Write

For the past three weeks, I’ve written about how I write, why I write what I write, and what I read. This week I’d like to tell you why I write each day and why I think it’s such a passion for me.
Since I was a girl, I’ve had a lively imagination. When I did mundane chores, I imagined stories to pass the time. I was a princess slaying those evil green bean dragons in the garden. I was a donkey walking along the edges of the Grand Canyon as I carried buckets of water to the corral. I was a servant girl on a pirate ship while I was washing dishes or irrigating. And so on.
For many years, I considered my active imagination to be a stumbling block for me. Other people didn’t seem to daydream as much as I did or have their mind wander like mine. I figured that meant I was abnormal. I felt ashamed of my imagination because it so freely wandered to all kinds of places. So I read lots of books and used my imagination to get lost in them.
I had a college class that required us to write a short fiction story. I found it to be one of the easiest assignments I had in college. I got an A and the professor really went on about how much he liked it. At the end of the semester, they annually gave an award to the best paper written during the school year. The professor nominated my short story, but they had to create a special category for fiction since other winners were non-fiction. I got $50 for that short story.
That’s what got me started. I started writing down some of these crazy stories that had swirled in my mind for years. I wrote two new reader books that I tried to get published, but didn’t have any luck with that. When I had a very staid job, my therapy for surviving it was to come home and write. That’s where The Treasure of Adonis came from. It was the first of several and I continue to write. Writing is fulfilling and comforting to me. That’s why I do it.
I now believe that my gift of writing and my churning imagination are gifts from God. Rather than hide His gifts in the sand, I’ll take my talent and use it to bear interest so that I can give a good account of myself. Even if not many read my books, at least I will have those stories out of my head and on paper or in electrons. I have many others right behind them, waiting to leave. I hope you enjoy my stories because I believe they are God’s gifts to me that I can share with you.