Why I Write

On November 6, 2005, I began blogging with a post titled, Why I Paint Horses. That was the obvious way to start a blog about painting horses, which I have been doing for over thirty years. That article was easy to write. I had been thinking about that mysterious thing called “A Love of Horses” for a long time.

I had also been thinking about that equally mysterious thing called “Artistic Talent” and the way a love of horses and artistic talent are wed in my personality, character, in my very being.

But I’ve been writing almost as long. My first ‘full length’ story was written when I was in the eighth grade. Yes, there have been some long dry spells during all those years, but the seed of literary creativity has always been there, waiting for the rains of opportunity and motivation to take root downward and sprout upward.

Yet, I’ve never really stopped to think about why I write in the same way I’ve thought about why I paint horses. Until recently.

Lately, I’ve been prompted to think about why I write. In the process, I went back to that original post on painting horses. In that post, I wrote the following:

…when I see horses running free across an open pasture, something stirs down inside that can’t be explained. It doesn’t need to be. And when I see horses competing against each other on the track, that same intangible emotion is there. That ‘thing’ that makes my throat tighten up and tears come to my eyes. And I think, “I’ve got to try to capture that look and that spirit” and it’s off to the studio. No explanation needed. No explanation wanted.

As I consider the things that prompt me to write, I see the same intangible response to the world around me and a desire to share it with others. But it’s more than that with writing. Something that gets me up in the middle of the night to write something I can’t get out of my mind? Something that ‘speaks’ to me, that says, “Here’s something you might want to write down.”

Something keeps me from finding these things at all strange. The desire to create was placed in us by God above and is a way we can imitate His creative processes in our own lives. The desire to share our knowledge, our experiences and our ideas with others is natural, too. The desire to share through creativity is as natural to me as breathing. I have to breathe. I have to paint. I have to write. Praise the Lord from whom ALL blessings flow.