I write because I never get the words quite right.
I write because I’m trying to tell a few stories and the stories I write always fall short of there.
I write because it’s one of the few things in my life that makes me feel whole and healthy.
I write because I want to touch a chord in my reader, whether that reader is known or unknown to me.
I write because writing is a large part of who I am, or perhaps who I have become over the course of my life.
I write because I am a lost soul trying to find myself in my writing.
I write because I don’t understand.
I write because it gives me joy.
I write because I want to blast through all the rejections (writing and other) and be accepted.
I write because I want to be admired.
I write because I want to be better and better at writing.
I write because I like saying, “I am a writer.”
I write because it is one of the few solid enduring things in my life.

The lines above are the result of a ten-minute exercise I wrote into my journal one morning not long ago, between 9:15 and 9:25 a.m. I offer it here just as I wrote it down, with no edits.