I’ve never been asked by someone else why I began writing. 

Nevertheless, it is something I’ve asked myself. 

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The reality is I had a bad beginning. Lots of screaming and violence and all that great stuff reserved for only the most girdled of therapists. I suppose I always believed I’d have a bad ending to my bad story. At the time, it only seemed logical.

The first worlds I created were all pastels and charm. Alone but for the imaginary animals I’d never had the chance to love. Endlessly peaceful and quiet. In the beginning, all of the stories in my head were dull and boring. Nothing ever happened in them. There was too much happening to me all the time to want anything to happen when I drifted away.

By the time I first thought of having a single adventure, I was nearly grown. Wonder, friendship, love, loyalty, compassion, strength of mind and will; these concepts could not be found in the place where I was born. They needed to be experienced somewhere else.

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This was when I began to write.

I was an atrocious writer then. I still keep in reserve some of my old drafts to remind myself what I write today will never be as heinous. Recently, I dug out my old fanfiction account just to delete those stories off the internet (No one would benefit from reading them, I promise you).

I started writing to pretend. 

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To pretend I knew what it was like to be a good person. To pretend I knew what it was like to be strong. In many ways, I do not see myself in my characters or in the fantastic, exciting worlds I try to build. They were born of the intangible. Something of a mysterious nature that only takes hold when one sets out to create in earnest. 

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I started writing to have something good.

I wrote out of necessity rather than passion. 

In this regard, the passion didn’t catch up until later and I have to say. Wow. It really does make the whole practice easier. I’m not sure if I’ll always have it around, but I certainly know what it feels like to have it hanging over my shoulders at five o’ clock in the morning having not slept in favor of keeping a session going. 

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It’s rather nice yet sadistic.

Thus far, it doesn’t respond to bribes or extortion.

So, hopefully, this is just another beginning.