Why Writing Every Day Change My Life.

I’m a writer. Not declaring myself as a good one, nor a bad one, or an average one, just as a person who simply dedicates a large amount of their time writing. I started young, at 7 or 8. Writing in my diary and writing short stories. I don’t quite know why. I guess I liked having a small secret of mine; a dialogue between me and my furry notebook, where I could write about my friends, how school was going, which boy I thought was cute, and which Harry Potter book was my favorite.

As for the short stories, like many kids, I had quite an imaginary mind. I, too, wanted to be a spy and live in a magical world. And through transferring my imagination onto paper, I could live it, in a way.

How about now, as an adult?

—Gloria Steinem once wrote that “Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.” Worded so simply yet to perfection, in my opinion, describing the primary reason for why I write. And it’s not just the writing itself that I’m drawn to; I like books about writers. Art portraying writers. Typewriters. Pencils. Notebooks. Bookshelves. Typography. Words. Dictionaries. Movies about writers.

Kill your darlings. Midnight in Paris. My writing is selfless. I want it to help people, on any scale, to move in the direction they should, need, or want to be moving in. Or simply to move people emotionally.

My writing is selfish. Writing is like a photograph, but of words and it can live on for thousands of years. I want to leave something behind. I want my great-grandchildren to be able to open a century-year-old journal of mine and feel something after I’m gone.

I write for my fulfillment. To release what’s within. To capture the moment, for me.

I write for my future self, who will be reading about my past self, which is my current self.

I want to be able to re-live past moments. Like how a second of smelling someone’s perfume or hearing a melody can take you straight back to a moment in the past, so quick you hardly know what’s going on. “We write to taste life twice, in the moment and retrospect.” ― Anais Nin.

I make lists of things: names I like, food combinations I’d like to try, topics I want to explore, quotes I come across, words I think sound beautiful: Älskling. Sommaräng. Vårkänsla. Maräng. Nattbad. Sometimes I’ll take a beautiful-sounding word and try to make something out of it, perhaps a haiku. 5, 7, 5. And so, I write because words are pretty, and I like playing with them. Oh yes, there’s no denying that there’s an aesthetic component to writing. Choosing a font that appeals to you or writing the same word or sentence over and over again but in different handwritings to see which one you like better. And some words just look beautiful in writing, and they’re satisfying to write out: like Penelope, Madeleine, or Phoebe. And it’s not just the physical aspect of it. Rearranging your sentences to where it sounds just right is oddly satisfying.

Sometimes we’ll read a book where the writing style just doesn’t appeal to us, even if we may like the content itself; while some books just are beautifully written, like Stoner, by John Williams.

“I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.”—Flannery O’Connor. I write because sometimes when I think of something and then write about it, I start viewing it differently than I previously had. Acting on feeling typical doesn’t turn out very well and writing sometimes acts as the middleman between feeling and action. I’m sure it’s saved me from some trouble.

I write to check myself. I was angry over a dispute once, but I didn’t know exactly what I was angry at until I wrote about it. Was it him? Me? The both of us? The world? Someone else? Writing about it made me realize it didn’t matter, and I gave myself closure. So, I write to understand things. To uncover them. Explore them. To give birth to new ideas and thoughts. To get clarity.

I’m driven by curiosity, in a lot of the things that I do, and writing is no exception. Whenever I come across a topic that I’d like to learn more about, I write it down. And sometimes, I’ll set aside some time to explore that topic, other times, it’s left to dust.

Socrates, what was he all about? Nostalgia. What even is that?

Why do dogs love us so much?

“You can make anything by writing “—CS Lewis.

Every movie, every commercial, presentation, speech, Your favorite song, your favorite character in that TV show… They come alive by the performer (and a lot of other people who help make it happen, of course) but they were given birth to by a writer. Or multiple. The possibilities of writing are limitless. We can create any character, any set, any events. We can go so deep into detail, deeper than any other medium can capture.

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Now, you don’t need to have professional aspirations with your writing. I think writing as a hobby is severely underrated. And writing isn’t just for those who feel like they have something important to say or those whose lives are extraordinarily interesting or for those who have had a profound realization and feel the urge to share it with the world.

You may for instance just want to practice articulating ideas. To edit.To re-write. Self-therapy.Harness your creativity. Pick a problem and attempt to solve it. Get your scrambled thoughts in order. Track your attention Recognize and process your emotions Explore your inner world.

Be embarrassed by your silly thoughts. Learn to laugh at it. And if you’d like, you can share it with someone. Just like how I’m sharing this, with you.