“A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it.” – Roald Dahl

The month of November in the blogging world each year brings forth challenges, writing challenges to be specific, usually in the form of something along the lines of NaNoWriMo, which I joined once, way back in my early days of blogging. It gave me confidence, I met other novice bloggers (and some not so novice!) and learnt some about the World of Blogging.

A few days ago I signed up for a month of daily November learning sessions, offered by WordPress ~ Blogging 201, which I am hoping will help me to understand the technical side of WordPress blogging more fully, ie ~ how to make all of those little widgets and gadgets work in my dashboard area, and Writing 101, to encourage me to write each day, a practice of which I have been extremely tardy of late!

The task today in Blogging 201 is to discover a new feature that you never realised you had, connected to the theme chosen for your blog. That was an easy task, as I had been wondering if my theme, Twenty Ten, offered a drop down box option option below the header. It does, and I have combined my other websites  into a drop down option, when the computer mouse is hovered over where it says “about” ~ give it a go, it works, and takes away some of the clutter at the top of my page! I have something else in mind to add there, a new idea though, which will need a bit more thought before I take action.

Today’s task for Writing 101 is the purpose for today’s post, in which students are asked to tell why they write. It will be interesting to read how others have answered this question (or completed the sentence, whichever way you wish to look at it) as for me, it’s a moot point ~ I have always written something, poems, letters, cards, fiction and non-fiction. I need paper, pens, pencils and books to keep my world spinning, and the world of the computer, and the internet, simply enhance my literary world. Why? I don’t know. Writing, words, are a part of who I am. Whether the words I write, when strung together in sentence form, are regarded as good, bad or otherwise is of no consequence. And as long as my sentences continue to make some sense, I will continue to write.

This November challenge arrived at just the right time for me. I remembered something recently, a forgotten dream, from over twenty years ago. When we lived in Sydney, with two young children and another on the way, planning to build our dream home “up north”, I saw my future home as one in which I would relax my soul and find a snippet of quiet time in every day. I had, and still have, a beautiful desk at which to write, and I dreamed of sitting at my wonderful desk and writing down all of the words I had wished to write during recent years, when my children were young and taking up all of the time in my days, and my writing was limited to the occasional letter.

My desk is still waiting for me. Don’t get me wrong, I have spent countless hours sitting with head down and pen in hand at my desk, writing business letters, or adding numbers into columns for the tax man. I’ve written out cards for various occasions, notes to school teachers, checked homework, even written out cheques back in the old days, and in more recent years these tasks have been promoted to another larger desk, complete with computer, printer, scanner….when all I really wanted was my simple desk, a pen and some paper on which to write the words told to me by the voice inside my heart.

So, I write because….I can, and in the hope that my words may hold some meaning to another soul who finds my words and reads them.

I write because….it is often easier to write than to speak. Forming written words clears my busy brain and has even answered questions to problems which I have imagined were insurmountable.

I write because….there may be something that I say that will be significant to a future generation, which is why I write down the information I have discovered, and the stories I have remembered, from past generations.

I write because I love to write. I write from my heart, I know of no other way. And I will continue to write.