Why I Write: Writing Is A Part Of Me, It Is Who I Am

There is no one answer to this question, really. I remember being surrounded by books since the time I remember my being. I grew up in a house of readers and was exposed to different genres of books very early in my life. My family moved houses a lot and I remember packing and unpacking of those books, the way their smell filled the empty new spaces, and made the new house ‘our’ home instantly.

I have always been mesmerised by the power the written word can have over one’s mind. The places I could travel to, the things I could imagine, the people I could meet without even moving an inch from my bed. The hobby of reading became a passion by the time I was in my pre-teens, I started picking books on my own whenever I visited the book fair or a bookstore.

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Slowly, the reader in me decided to spin her own stories. The stories which started and ended as per my own whims and fancies. The stories in which I got to decide how the big bad wolf was beaten up by the three little pigs, the stories where the little red riding hood was smarter than she was in the book I had read years ago. Around this time, I also started reading out stories to my younger siblings and without conscious knowledge, the stories moved away from their original plots and swayed in a completely different direction during my narrations. This was the time the writer in me realised my real potential.

Later, I began scribbling these stories in a notepad which I still have with me. I began writing because I wanted to tell stories my way and continued because I wanted to share those untold stories -the stories that I believed deserve to be told.

I write because I have a passion for stories and I believe in their magic. I pen them down to give my thoughts a place for storage, a place where they can be revisited. Somedays, writing becomes a tool for me to clear my hazy thoughts on others it gives me the power to create emotions unknown to me. Sometimes I write to document a vivid dream that I do not wish to forget and sometimes it is just the thrill of creating something new, something exciting that inspires me to write.

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Not to forget, it helps me destress in a way nothing else can. Sometimes when too many complex emotions are wound up within and you pen them down, you can feel a comforting cloud of peace envelope you. Now all that was wounding you up is out there, on the paper you can take a deep breath and look at it from a neutral point of view. It unburdens and makes things less messy in my head.

When I am not writing, surprisingly I still am. My brain keeps working on my next story, the next book, the next letter. Writing is a part of me, it is who I am. I write to feel liberated, I write to feel alive, I write because my writings will live longer than I will and that is one hell of a motivation.

Image Credit: Shravya Bhinder/ Penguin Random House

Formerly a corporate employee, author Shravya Bhinder is a sucker for romance and strives to pen down exciting stories. She is the bestselling author of Something I Never Told You. Her latest book is To you with love. The views expressed are the author's own.