Read 'Til You Drop

I'm not usually a meme-y sort, but this one intrigued me...



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Mindy, wondering how accurate this is...

As requested by domynoe, my responses to the Why I Write meme...

I write because I can't imagine not writing.

I go through my day-to-day life, and I make up stories about the people and the things around me. I create my own little versions about why that woman is shopping in that store, why that child is sulking, why that man is screaming into his cell-phone. I also find bits and pieces of information, and I think - Wow, this is too cool not to share. Sometimes those data surface from my formal research work as a librarian, sometimes they're the result of overheard conversations, sometimes they're the product of a trip to a museum, reading a book, watching a television show....

All of these bits and pieces just need to be glued together. It's sort of like piecing a quilt out of fabric scraps. I enjoy manipulating the parts into a new whole. I enjoy creating new shapes, new patterns, new ways of seeing the world around me.

When I don't write, I get cranky. I become anxious. I feel like I haven't exercised, or like I've eaten too much sugar without enough protein. Like something is missing.

There've been plenty of times when I've vowed I'm never going to write again. I've said that I don't have the time, or the fortitude, that I can hit my own head against the wall thank you very much; I don't need editors to do it for me.

But the next day, or the day after, or the day after that, I find myself thinking, "Wouldn't that make an interesting story?" Or "I would love to figure out who that woman really is." Or "It would be fun to tell a story where ..."

So, I write.

What makes you write? (If you do. And if you don't, what makes you read? And if you don't, what are you doing reading this blog?)

I'm not big on memes - I'm intrigued by other people's answers, but I feel a little... I don't know... silly posting my answers here.  (I mean, who *cares* about what I have to say?!?)

And yet, this one drove me to create my own reply.  I'm surprised at the number of writers I read as a kid.  I'm surprised that there are no books on the list that I started but never finished.  And I'm surprised that there are none on my "life is too short" list - it seems to me, though, that anything on that list would also have to be on the "tried and abandoned" list, because if I haven't even *tried* it, how can I know it has no redeeming value for me?

Obviously, looking at my list, I should expand my reading of women of color...