Why do you write?

Hi!

This post will deal with 'why do you write?' and the 'writing mission statement'. Let's go!

Why do you write? What's your mission statement as a writer? You don't have one? Well... you should. It's important to know why you do what you do and what you want to achieve with it. It'll keep you on track if you don't know what to do next (such as if you have no more ideas or writer's block or any other excuse you can think of).

You can easily do this by completing this sentence:
When people are done with my book/story/film/etc I want them to...

What should they have learned? What should they feel? What do you hope you'll make them experience throughout your book and after they're done with it? I don't have any pretentious ambitions such as 'when people read this they will be kinder to their parents'... and it took me three years to be able to condense mine into a single sentence.

I want people to think.

It doesn't even matter too much about what (although I'll try to think of some good topics to start with in the coming weeks).

Let me explain.

Why think? What's so special about thinking? Everyone does it! But do they think deeply enough? Do they (to use a fancy word) contemplate? I suppose some of us do and some don't. Then why is this abstract concept of thinking important enough to me to make it my writing goal?

It's simple.

I enjoy helping people. I like making their lives better in any way I can (Life Pro Tip: often all it takes is a smile! I'm always happy if people smile at me on the train or the bus or... you know... randomly!).

My utopia is a world in which difference is understood and not fought or feared. Any kind of difference. Difference of opinion and emotion and skin colour and religion... et cetera. It doesn't matter whether there is difference or not. There always will be. No two people are alike, even if they're the same skin colour, or if they support the same presidential candidate, and in order for there to be peace, this has to be understood. I'm still trying to explain this concept clearly.

I do believe there's a simple formula for this.

Empathy.

Empathy is key. Empathy leads to understanding and understanding to change.

The only person who can change someone's life is that person herself. I want people to understand how all the world's differences don't really matter. At the core, people are the same, everywhere. We all want to be loved, we all want to be appreciated. We want to be cherished. And at the heart of it, all we want is to be happy, to be loved, to live a life in peace, without struggle.

This is why there's been a change to my mission statement over these three years. It's become more detailed. I want to help people... and you know the why... so the question is: How? How do you achieve this? How do you make people think? What should you do? Well... Have you heard of preaching to the choir? This isn't my goal. It doesn't change anyone's point of view. It's been my experience people only really learn and remember - and really believe - through experience they make themselves.

It doesn't matter if I tell you the grass is green. You'll only believe me once you've seen it for yourself. Because then you'll know what the green-ness of grass is, how it looks like, how it smells, how it feels like under your fingertips, and you'll never forget.

This is why my mission is to make people think. It is all I want to have achieved when readers are done with my stories. They should think. They should think about what they've read, and if not consciously, then sub-consciously.

Here's a way to tell whether an author was working with a mission statement. Does the imagery come back to you after months? What does it make you feel/think? Do you still think about 'what happened next in a year'?

Want to know more? I'll recommend Catching Fireflies and Iana as a start. They're great stories to illustrate my mission statement. They're the core of it. They're the two stories about which readers most frequently ask me 'what happens after?'. Well... you tell me! You can read them for free on Kindle Unlimited.

I hope you're having a good week (it's so incredibly hot here!) and comments are appreciated! J.M.