​Why do I want to write?

Why do you want to be a writer? It's a question worth asking. Do you want to get famous? Is it all about the money? Maybe you want to have a bestseller or be adored? Unfortunately, these things may not carry you all the way!

Perhaps you enjoy the writing process. It could be your love for the written word that motivates you. Do you have stories in your head you just have to get down? Is there a burning passion to tell people about something you believe in, or something you’ve conquered?

For me, I just began writing from a young age - it kind of flowed out of me. I was born to write. Is that you? So, my sister and I made a hundred books when we were small kids: cartoons, stories, songs...

Then, when I was a teenager, I wrote longer stories. Short stories, poetry, song lyrics, novellas. Then the novels came. Dreamscape, The Shore, Submission, Sleeping Dogs. They were my children. Meanwhile, I was reading anything that would feed me: Dickens, William Gibson, Tolstoy, Tolkien, Kafka, Austen, Joyce, Coupland, Stephenson, Moorcock, Woolf.

At first I wrote for myself, from my gut. Coming to terms with life, love and a broken heart, callous bullies, the death of friends, weighty disappointments, the hope of faith. I wrote for my own survival. To stay sane. I wrote because my heart burned and I had to write to put out the fire.

By the time I came to write Wings of an Angel and the 5fingers quintet, I was writing with you in mind, writing to inspire and entertain people. I wrote because the fire just would not go out. Ever.

So, what about you - why do you write? JRx

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