Because I Was Alone

I’m a writer because I write, because being a writer is what defines me, defines who I am and who I was and who I will be.  And trust me, I wrote for all the reasons you can imagine.  I wrote because I had to get those words out of my head, I wrote for fun, I wrote because I wanted to impress people, because I wanted to make them cry or laugh.  I wrote because I wanted to leave something behind, because I wanted a really long Wikipedia article about me.  I wrote for fame and glory, I wrote for money.  I wrote because I was heartbroken, I wrote because I knew no one was going to write my stories for me.  I wrote because I was starving.  I wrote because I was alone.
I wrote for the entire world, and I wrote for just one person.
I wrote because I knew my stories would never come true, and I wrote because I hoped they would.
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And you know what I learned in all my years of writing?
All that matters are the words you write.  Nothing else.  When you do your thing, it doesn’t matter (and it shouldn’t) what others are going to think about it.  When you write, you should stop worrying about whether or not people are going to like your story, whether or not someone’s going to read it, whether or not they’ll care.  You should stop worrying whether or not you have something to say or you just want to say something, because you do have something to say.  And it’s not about saying something that no one else ever thought of saying, but about saying it in your voice.  And that’s something we all have.
Writing is all about finding the courage to write.  And courage is all about realizing that some things are more important than fear.
—    Cristian Mihai
[The above quote is from the site:  http://cristianmihai.net/
The specific posting is:  http://cristianmihai.net/2013/01/29/never-give-up-on-your-dreams/
I can only add that sometimes courage is also about sharing a little bit of it (courage) with others.
Thanks, Cristian!    —    KMAB]
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