Why Do You Write?

Once I was asked, "Why do you write?". My first thought was that this was a rather odd question. Then it occurred to me that people who didn't write or create in any way might actually be curious. I managed to suppress the urge to answer "because it's there" and set about to try and explain why. This was my final answer:

What is best in life?

To crush your enemies...to see them driven before you...to hear the lamentations of their women! Perfect if you are Conan. Not so much if you're Joe Average trying to get past the daily routines of life. I think that's why I write, to escape the humdrums of the world. Don't get me wrong, I love my life and everybody in it. However, to be able to create a completely new world, new races and creatures...and then to thrust them into adventures, that is what is best in life. To be a writer is the closest any human can be to god. Breathing life into a new world and then determining that world's fate. Choosing their heroes and villains, setting them on a course of discovery and trials and finally bringing their story to an ending...or to the start of the next adventure. 

To write is to escape. To bring the thoughts and images that wander through our brains and give them descriptions and therein, life. To enrich them with purpose and direction, to lift them beyond words and into a story and then to share that story with others. Even if only one person reads it, it has served its purpose and the writer his.

What is best in life?

To capture your thoughts... To see them written before you... To hear their story told aloud!

OK, I'll admit that I had watched Conan the Barbarian just hours before and for some unexplained reason, Arnold inspired me. I'm not ashamed. But back to the subject. I wonder what reasons other writers have? Certainly some might do it for the money and others might do it to have a great pick-up line at the nightclub. Still, I need to grasp that there are other reasons not quite as shallow.

Is it a driving force that requires vomiting words into a story or is it a more delicate nudging of something that must be released? Is it joyful or stressful? Is it satisfying when it's finished like sex or more like a cold beer on a hot day?

I'd love to hear what other writers think about such a question. Why do you write?