Why do we? Why do I? It seems to me that writing has to be a non-optional part of life for it to work. Something so integral to who you are that it might reside up there in the upper echelons with lasagna and chocolate. You know, just below faith and breathing and kidneys. I am not saying that you have to make it a priority. You do, but that isn’t what I’m getting at. I think that it has to command that place in your life, with or without your consent.
Writing can be many things: academic, exploratory, communicative, an emotional release, a spiritual discipline, therapeutic, cathartic, habitual, or nothing more than a creative outlet. But there is a time, or a place, that it becomes essential; that it is all of those things, and in their course they render the writing itself necessary to your well-being. On the day it happens you realize that you are a better person when you write. On the day that it becomes essential, you become a writer.
Tucked happily into the gorgeous hills and woods of Wisconsin, I write about life, faith, and the humor that both require. 
Tales From the Nexus 