Because I want to connect.

Because I have to; I've always had to. I can't NOT write.

Why does anyone write anything? Why do people write shopping lists? So that they will remember the eggs?

No, they write shopping lists so they don't have to remember the eggs. They write, in other words, to forget.

As do I. I get stories in my head. They knock around in there, growing, taking up brain space, until I write them down. Only then can I forget about them.

• I wanted to be an actor, but I'm better at this.
• I want to know how the story will come out.
• Writing is (sometimes) fun.
• This is the arena where I can test myself.
• Sometimes I just don't have what I want to read, so I have to write it.

Because it would drive me crazy not to.

I couldn't decide between spaceman, spy, knight, pilot, or chef. With writing, I can do all of them.

Because there is the monkey on my shoulder that gives me no peace unless the words are being put down. Then there is the obligation to the stories that choose me to write them. Other than those, my reasons are much the same as yours.

The stories clog my brain if I don't - they have to go somewhere - "paper" is a better medium than permanently in my brain.

I've talked about this question before, mostly at http://jimvanpelt.livejournal.com/349656.html, but a couple of other posts too.

I think I write mostly because when a story works, it's SO cool. Sometimes the language lines up in a pleasing fashion, and out of that arrangement a sense of rightness, magic, art or something in the territory of all three arises.

I live my life in other spaces, in other voices and bodies than the ones I have been born to; there is always a story in my head, a better-than-life, an if-only.
And there is the feel, the flavour, the shape I search for when I read, or listen or watch, the right note, the golden light, the single dark magic. And words are how I chase that down and try to make it show itself.

When I stop writing my life tends to go very badly and when I start writing again it tends to fix itself. I have no idea why. But I guess I'd better not stop writing. It's like a vitamin.

I write because I have to. That's the only way to get those stories out of my head, so they'll leave me alone.

It reminds me that I exist.

To get the voices in my head to shut the *bleep* up.

It's neat messing around with words and text, polishing and rearranging. Lately I'm very into translation, which is a continual sequence of fun little enigmas to solve.

There's this story and I want to know where it goes and I want to find and end to it. Once I've done that, I want to share it.

Like many of the other posters, I write to get the stories out of my head and because I have to. If I don't write, I get bitchy and crazy.

But also, I write because it's fun. There is nothing better, not even really good sex, that's as satisfying as writing. And I love to live in story land. "What if" are the most powerful words in any language.

look at all my trials and tribulations
sinking in a gentle pool of wine
don't disturb me now
I can see the answers
til this evening is this morning life is fine

Some of my mission statement is up on my real-name blog: I want to make fiction strange as truth, to reflect the inner realities of the people I know and love.

Then there's the fact that written English is my natural language, in a way spoken English is not. My timing is frequently off, and my thoughts often so high-bandwidth that articulating them in full takes paragraphs. This is continually frustrating to me. It's great to be able to sit down and really say what I mean, rather than fragments of it.

And there's also the simple love of books and desire to make more of them. Lots of people think this way about their own species; I suppose that makes me a symbiotic part of the reproductive system of books. Wow, I never thought of it quite that way before.

You write until you don't need to anymore.