Why do I write?

I write because I read. There is magic in immersing oneself in the story, in stepping through the wardrobe and into an undiscovered country. I discovered the magic in third grade. The book was Harriet the Spy. When Harriet lost her notebook…I had to know what would happen. This was the first time I read into the wee small hours of the night. It wasn’t the last by any means. Even now, twenty-plus years later, I’m sometimes found reading at 2AM or asleep with the book still in my hand. The magic hasn’t faded.

I write because I want to share that magic with others.

I’ve been meaning to write my first post, but I couldn’t decide what to write about. We all know about the business of everyday life, and you writers out there know about the terror of the blank page. Then this weekend I learned of the death of my high school English teacher. He was the man who taught me to write, to love words, their power and what a writer could do with them. Fittingly, a conversation we had this past summer has become the inspiration for a series of posts: Why do I write?