Writing

One of the things about writing is that i find myself needing excuses to write. I know there are lots of reasons and perhaps nearly as many excuses not to write, but i still find myself needing reasons to put stuff down on paper or into the hard-drive, datasphere ..what ever.
writing about writing is one of the best methods or writing about not writing. Every once in a while i find myself reading an article that lists ten or so habits of good writing. Even though the world may already have enough lists of articles about writing, I can't see any harm in writing more. the rest of the junk and clutter may have covered over the previous lists, reducing them to compost. Any way lists are always a good thing to put on your blog. They look so attractive with the little numbers - it almost makes me want to start tweaking the layout- so lets get on with it what are my reasons to write?

1. I don't really have a career, writing makes me feel important. it' also time consuming and terribly intellectual. half the people i meet are a little bit afraid of writing because of some bad experience they had in grammar school of college.
   
2. Writing helps me keep my body in shape. Let's face it - if i didn't write then my little fingers would get fat and we all know how unattractive that is.
3. Writing is good for the ego. I know it looks like I've already covered this, but when i write i can pretend to be whom ever i wish. thats very liberating - even if it is a little delusional.
4. Writing exercises that part of my brain that would otherwise be driving me nuts. A part of me is always fiddling with stuff and reviewing statements arguments and re-doing it the way it should have been. I can't really win any arguments from the past but i can improve my arguments in a paper i wrote, and i can rewrite the arguments for fictional characters. If I didn't have writing to work on that part of my brain would be trying to edit parts of my life. I can't hep thinking that's not healthy.
5. Writing makes my mother proud. I don't need to say more on this do I?
6. Writing improves my writing. I know this seems obvious, but its the same thing with my guitar playing, it really sounds better when i play more often - even if it is the same couple of songs I learned in high school.
7. Writing is the face you present to the world. OK this doesn't apply to all you real worlders. but in academia and here on the interwebs, Its pretty much all words unless you are a programmer.
8. Writing can make money. This is probably the worst reason to write unless you write books about making money by writing, in which case you may attract quite a few fans among the ranks of destitute writers.
9. Writing is creative. writing makes something out of nothing. in the worst cases writers just rearrange words that other people have used before (as I'm doing here) but even that creates a new perspective. Even if you just fill up a page a day in an old ring binder, you will eventually look back and find something impressive. Every so often I go through the old boxes in my garage, chase away the silverfish, and read some of my old notebooks. When my life seems rather insignificant, i look back and remind my self who I was back then and get impressed by what a good writer i was back then.
10. Writing is how I connect to other people. I' sure this is starting to sound redundant but I do think about people in terms of words, and words are the tools i use to comfort (and hurt) others in my life. writing them down seems to give them more solidity and substance. I genuinely like people and I enjoy communicating with others. It's really cool to be able to do this with my fingers.
    
    

That's about all that i can think of right now.
You don't have to take it very seriously. Its just an exercise - list ten reasons why you write. something else to fill those voluminous spiral notebooks with.
What got me started was this article pointed out to me by some one on Friend Feed. Give it a look for a more sober take on 10 Reasons to Write Every Day