Why I Write

• I think better that way. Maybe that means I have a short-term memory problem, but I can type antidisestablishmentarianism with barely a second thought, but stand me up in a spelling bee (not that we have those here) and I'll just forget which 's' I'm on and stand there looking bemused. On the other other hand, I could just have a rubbish short-term memory.
• I learn more that way. Yes, I know learning is related to thinking. But what I'm thinking of here is what I learnt about God while writing Countless as the Stars. I hope that means that the finished product was able to convey something of the nature of God... but I guess that is up to Him. The point here is that I learnt a lot about the nature and person of God in the writing process.
• It's an act of worship. I make no apologies if that sounds weird. For a while I forgot this aspect of the writing process (that short-term memory problem I expect) and got confused about how I, with the musical ability of a demented bee, should worship God. As a Christian my whole life should be an act of worship; musical types use their creativity as a visible outlet, and so should I.
• It's what God made me to do. It's weird, while I was working on Countless as the Stars, I was convinced that God wanted me to write a whole Bible's worth of Old Testament Space Operas. Then of course nobody took any interest in it, and even after getting a short print run made up (mainly so I would stop fiddling with the thing!) I sort of lost heart in the whole project. I've got my heart back now, maybe not for Old Testament Space Operas (at least, not yet) but for writing stories. I have a fresh sense of what it is God wants me to tell the world. So I guess I should be writing...