Why write?

Some people can't wait to go to bed at night, to rest from the punishing day; some people dread going to sleep, afraid of the nightmares they might suffer. As for me, it's not so binary. I'm a little different.

See, when I go to sleep, I enter a world that's entirely under my control. I'm one of the rare few that retains metacognition while dreaming. With a brush of my hand, I create galaxies of stars overhead that glow with fluorescent magnificence. A thought is all it takes to raise mountains from the ground, build cities, craft a romance. My mind becomes master over a realm that has no boundaries, knows no limits. I build a universe every night, watch it grow, watch it flourish—I'm free to escape the tyranny of reality.

You'd think I'd look forward to this, which in one sense you're right. But each morning I wake up, and the colors of my imagination disappear into nothing more than an ethereal memory, destined to fall victim to the reaper known as time. The only way I can save my creations, to keep them from dissolving away, is to capture them with words—though, even language is a crude tool at best.

This is why I constantly strive to perfect my craft, to better ensnare the elusive worlds inside my head.

This is why I am an author.

This is why I write.