Why I write

I recently came across Simon Sinek. I'll tell you more about how in a future post, but for now let me just say thank you to +Scott Dinsmore and the Live Your Legend website. Simon wrote Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action (affiliate link) and his TED talk and the interview he did with Scott really got me thinking about why I am writing and self-publishing my books. As I went through it in my head I thought it would be something good to share.

I am smart enough to realize that writing for profit is a long shot. Over a year ago when I started writing my first book I never actually thought about what I would do with it when I was done. Now that I have become engaged in the #indieauthor movement I will be publishing my books but the best seller list is not really a goal. Additionally I have not made a dime from writing. If money were the goal I would have stopped long ago.

Last night I was on the #yalitchat on Twitter. When the featured debut authors were asked how they kept going in the face of so much rejection there were some beautiful answers. These are paraphrased but they were along the lines of:

• "The story was inside of me, I had no choice but to get it out."  
• "I don't like failure and to stop writing before being published meant failure to me."
• "Because I had to share my craziness with the world." 

People like that amaze me because they care so much. Many times they can't even tell you how they came to do what they are so passionate about, from their perspective they have always done it. That's not me.

I write because I believe that anything is possible. I don't have the research to prove it but I think that fiction inspires real life more than any of us know. Whether Jules Verne inspired submarine development with 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or a super hero comic inspired someone to build a real invisibility cloak it happens.

If my story reaches one person and ignites a spark in them to pursue an idea that I've dreamed up then I have achieved my goal. That's why I write.