Why I Write

By Marlis Day

If you really want to write, it will gnaw at you until you do it. It’s a calling, a need to express yourself, a deep desire to share your thoughts.

As soon as I developed the skills to write sentences and paragraphs, I began writing letters to friends, relatives, & pen pals. I was in the fourth grade. Later, as my life became more interesting, I entered essay contests at school and wrote articles for the school newspaper. When I began my teaching career in Chicago at the age of twenty, I wrote plays for my students and sent lengthy narratives home to my family. I loved doing it; it fed some deep inner need in me.

During those busy years of being a stay-at-home mom and then a working mom, it was difficult to find time to write. But I thought, and imagined, and recorded life experiences. I was forever plagued with the “what-ifs.” Since I emerged from a family of storytellers, plots formed and developed in my mind – stories begging to be told. I worked and waited. I read good books and noted how authors expressed themselves.

When the kids left home for college and the dust settled, I purchased my first computer and learned word processing. How refreshing to be able to create and delete, to let stories flow from my fingertips. I used my newly-found freedom to write articles and short stories, which I sold to magazines. I wept when I received my first check ($150.) for doing what I loved.

A few years later, I began my first book. I have never been more intense than when I wrote WHY JOHNNY DIED. My mind traveled to the fictional town and dealt daily with the host of characters I had created. What fun to determine the weather, settle scores, and kill off the bad guys at will. When it was published in 1999, I felt a love and pride surpassed only by my wedding day and the birth of my children. I now have four books in print and a fifth one scheduled for release later this year, but none of the others sent my spirit soaring like the first one. Interestingly, it’s still my best-selling book. Why do I write? How can I not?

Marlis Day is a graduate of Indiana State University and is a member of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime. She teaches language arts and is the author of the Margo Brown Mystery Series. http://www.marlisday.com/ or http://wwwmarlisday.blogspot.com/ for more info.