A writing exercise that answers this question.
I write because I wanted to be a spy like Harriet M. Welsch from Louise Fitzhugh’s Harriet the Spy. I wanted to know everything and not be afraid to learn something if I didn’t know. So many thoughts escape the recording I do with my pen that I can’t help writing it all down. Or as much as I can.
I write because my guilty pleasure is listening to pop music. I want to be able to capture every pop song’s meaning in a trashy teen novel. Not enough has been said through the mouth of the teenager.
I write because I’m deathly heartbroken and I have no other cure for my manic-depressive condition. I wish I could be like J.K. Rowling, and yet I have so much in common with her and her stories already it’s scary. I want to express myself because I’m angry with many boys and I want to give them a piece of my mind.
I write because I’m hungry and filling pages with words is the only way to take my mind off food. That, and TV. Especially dramas. I love dramas. Life is pretty boring, but everything you never imagined to be possible, happens in a drama.
I write because I’ve been doing it since the second grade. It’s the only hting I’m good at in college. I love ranting, but I hate oral presentations.
I write because if I didn’t, I think I’d go crazy and try to kill myself.