I have been meaning to write this for some time now but writing commitments have kept me busy and it’s just as well as it gave me the time to reflect a little deeper upon it all and think really why do we write? Why do we spend long days, weeks, months putting down on paper (or the screen) words that create worlds as realistic and deep as the one we live in, deeper than that if you like because the worlds we create, unlike the world we live in seem to call us, talk to us, speak in a voice we understand and in them we function without any problem.

Once you discount the obvious, and obviously false motives of fame and wealth (few authors manage to attain one or the other let alone both) what we are left with is what I call the ‘writer’s imperative’. Real writers write because we have no other choice. Writing is like breathing and we are compelled to write and, in this case, we write no matter what obstacles we face. We scribble down stories, events, ideas and odd pieces of dialogue on pieces of paper, on the back of napkins, on notebooks and envelopes, notepads, phones and PDAs. We write like our life depends on it without really understanding why and then, only then, do we think that what we have written must find a market and hope that someone will want to read it.

In terms of what I said and despite the fact that I have spent a long time of my life actually teaching writers to write it seems that, technique and story mechanics apart writers are not made but are born, or maybe chosen as Stephenie Meyer’s experience would seem to suggest.

If you feel that compulsion to write if you felt the need to let words come spilling out for you, if you feel the need to lose yourself in a world which grates against your awareness, alerting you to its presence, then, well, welcome to the club.