Why?

The wonderfully named Kate Lord Brown (isn't that a cool name?) asked a great question on her blog recently: Why do you want to write?

Now, I'd already answered that question on this very blog, but it's one of those questions that sort of stuck in my head. It turns out, I had a few more things to add:

I write because I want to be a producer, not just a consumer (I grow vegetables in my garden for the same reason).

I also write because I want to set an example to my kids - I love that they're growing up in a house where it's perfectly natural for Daddy to occasionally get up at 5am to write them a novel. I love that our oldest daughter described me as "a writer" for a school project last year - she didn't mention the Air Force at all.

I write because life is a wonderful mystery, and I am a wonderful mystery to myself, and writing is one way I sort out some of the clues... not to figure out the mystery, but to wrestle with it (I think that's the fun part about mysteries).