I suppose the reasons for writing novels run the gamut of thought-provoking imaginations. Oh sure, most of us have mimicked the common quote, "I write because I can't not write." Ted Dekker told the crowd at the booksigning yesterday that he writes to explore. Mary DeMuth declared she writes fiction because she's "mad" at all the injustice she sees so she wants to expose it.
Some of us write because it seems we always have. Writing has been a part of our lives for as long as we can remember accompanying our childhood adventures and capturing our teen and 20's angst. If we're serious it follows us into maturity and sticks with us as we age. We grow, it grows along with us. Writing is like an appendage we use for certain types of work.
Other writers realize the urge later in their lives but tackle it with a passion they couldn't have known until they began to put those words in their souls on the pages of story. It hooks them like a drug bringing both euphoria and desperation.
Writers seem to crave definition. It travels with their trade and demands discovery. Why do writers write? Define it for yourself and define it for those who wonder why. What is that thing that compels you to transfer words to paper or screen and ache to make those words stronger, lovelier, more descriptive, grittier, carry more depth and gaze into the souls of both the beautiful and the horrendously ugly and perverse? Can you define it? Not sufficiently.
It's all tangled up with callings, and talents, and ordinations. It's twisted by motives and goals and schemes and directives. It's toughened by rejections and critics and efforts which so often seem wasted.
Stripped down, why do you write stories?
Father, only you give us true definitions, the ones that satisfy the soul. Thank you for the words. May we do them justice for you. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.
Into the Fire 
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