Writing has become a habit for me. What I write about changes, and the frequency of creative writing projects ebb and flow, but writing forms part of each day. This consistency is largely due to the morning pages habit I picked up from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. Writing out whatever is in my head, no matter how mundane or magnificent, helps me to understand what is going on in my mind.

One of my favourite summaries of what writing means to me is captured in the image below, which was part of creative project I was involved in a few years ago. I’ve also included the words below as it still rings true for me today.

Why write? To find out what I really think. To make stuff up. To create new worlds, give life to characters who inhabit my head in places both real and imagined. To test out what it’s like to be what I know I’m not. To create new stories. To entertain. To encourage. To record in some small way the awe and wonder of life as I experience it. To quest, to search for a deeper layer of meaning. To be playful. To show a different way of seeing and being. To be heard. To surprise. To make myself laugh. To take another viewpoint. To exact revenge in a literary style. To capture snapshot moments and snatches of eavesdropped conversations. To create empathy for people and situations. To make sense of it all. To be.

What does writing mean to you?

I’m participating in this blogging challenge for the month of January, which supports starting the year on the “write” track. You can find other posts with #bloganuary and join in the challenge.

Photo: detail of the Scarlet Pen project image.