Why I write

I have an urge to write. I just can't stop writing. If I'm not writing words on a device or a paper, I'm writing in my head. Not all the time but often, very often. After blogging about the lifestyle of lifestyle blogging I've been thinking more about my urge to write.

Wild things happen in your brain when you write. That is, when you do creative writing, rather than just copying words and sentences. Blogging included, of course. For those who are still wondering if blogging is worth it, I can give a whole bunch of reasons. Reasons such as marketing by blogging. Getting your services and products or ideas noticed. Or having a platform for creation or place where to vent. And treating it as an opportunity and way to learn. Learn new skills and things while doing research for your blog posts. Learn to write better by writing. Learn to be more persuasive, learn new words and expressions, learn to market and explain your ideas. Writing, in general, is a way to learn, to move on, to handle thoughts and feelings. To sort out the ideas you've heard and read. To get ideas organised and clarified. It's the same as clarifying your thoughts by talking to someone, including to yourself, about them. Instead of thinking out loud, you are writing out loud. Or thinking in written form.

This is partially why writing is scary. It can bring out things about yourself, things you didn't want to know. Things you hate about others. It gives you a whole new insight in the way you view the world. Of course, that insight doesn't always surface immediately. And it's not found in superficial, fast and thoughtless writing. At least not immediately. Though in time, you may notice how superficial, fast and thoughtless your writing was, a good insight for anyone. Me included. I have often found myself writing cautiously, not going too deep in my own feelings and trying not to upset anyone. Yet there's always someone who gets upset. Because when you read anything by anyone, what you read becomes personal to you. Personally offending, personally soothing. Personally personal.

There are times when I have this feeling I cannot write. Some might call it a writer's block. I have called it that too. Many professional writers say there's no such thing as writer's block. Apparently Terry Pratchett has said writer's block was invented by people in California who couldn't write. It's an excuse, procrastination or just a general feeling of being stuck. Whatever you want to call it my best advice for curing the block is to sit down and write without judgement. Don't get obsessed with the length of your writing, don't get obsessed with the quality, form and typos, or whether what your wrote is going to be published or not. Write something, anything.

But wasn't the question why do I write? Okay, let's start with the basics. I learned to read and write sometime before school. As a matter of fact, I was reading full length novels by the time I went to school and was supposed to learn to read. This is not because I was some sort of a child genius, savant with a huge brain and an incredible mind. It was because I have older sisters who wanted to get me out of their hair. Thus they kept me busy by teaching me how the letters on paper work. I can't remember the time when I wasn't reading. Nor the time when I didn't have the urge to write. I used to have diaries, but they always felt somehow unnatural way of writing. I also was always suspicious that someone would find my diaries and read my secrets, thus I kept censoring myself in them. Once, as an adult, I tried to read some of my teenage diary entries, the ones I wrote with my first PC in '90s. In those entries I referred to people and events with such vague substitutes that it was hard to understand who and what I was writing about. Obviously those people and events had felt important at the time. So important, I had thought I would remember them by the vague references. Unfortunately, after some time, the details had been scrubbed out of my head.

Stories have been a huge part of my life from my very beginning. The thirst for stories runs in my family. Reading, hearing, telling and writing stories is built in me. If there are no other stories available, I start to make them up. My daydreaming can be as elaborate as any movie you watch. The people, the details, the surroundings, even the music is set. I draw my characters from reality and my imagination. People from my "real life", movies, television, Internet, people I know and people I know of, and people I invent, live lives, laugh, cry, hate, love, argue and come together in my mind. While those stories don't necessarily ever end up written down, they are stories nevertheless. Writing is thinking. And thinking is writing.

I regard myself as a poet. Hey, a published poet too. I paint with words. For me, a thousand words is worth more than a picture. If only you use the right words. Taking a photo of a sunset is easy. Describing a sunset, especially without resorting to clichés, that's a whole new twist. When the sky is red as a tomato and orange as a ripe tangerine, and the sun is slipping down at the fringe of the world. The art of words draws me in. Makes me want to do my best and my better. It's my comfort zone and it's my discomfort zone. I write to process my feelings and thoughts. I write to learn. There's no justification, there's no reasoning.

I write, because I cannot not write.

• The good, the bad and the ugly of sharing daily selfies on Instagram
• Why I don\'t do to-do lists