Why I Write: A Brief History

I’m happy to be part of a writing-theme blog hop since the request came from my friend, Yvonne DiVita of Lipsticking blog-fame. I learned I’d be in great company with my friends, Robbi Hess, All Words Matter, and Toby Bloomberg, Diva Marketing (Toby is also my “blog mama,” who convinced me to start blogging in 2005.)

Here’s why I write:

1. I was born a word person as I inherited a dominant gene for reading and writing from my mother. I prefer puzzles and games that involve words (Scrabble, Boggle, Word Jumbles) rather than numbers. When my husband makes fun of my being math-challenged, I remind him I’m a “qualitative” rather than a “quantitative” person. Bottom line: we would all be in trouble if an alien invader told me I could save our planet by completing a Sudoku puzzle!
2. My earliest experience as a writer occurred at the impressionable age of eight when one of my poems was published in a college literary magazine. More recently, I’m proud to say I’m the published author of two business books.
3. I write now because I have an important message to share with corporate and nonprofit managers: “The way your employees feel is the way your customers will feel, and if your employees don’t feel valued, neither will your customers.” My Quality Service Marketing blog enables me to carry this message beyond my books, workshops and presentations.

Like most writers, I’m excited to see my words in print. I recently discovered why after reading Ann Lamott’s book on writing, Bird by Bird, in which she describes how she felt after winning a scholastic writing competition:

“I understood immediately the thrill of seeing oneself in print. It provides some sort of primal verification: you are in print; therefore you exist.”

Next up

Reading the wonderful posts in this blog hop has been fascinating. Although I took a different tack in explaining “Why I Write,” I’m both humbled and encouraged to learn that other writers share many of the same frustrations and joys in writing that I experience. Our content may be different, but the process (and sometimes the pain) is similar.

To continue learning more from other writers, I tagged Dennis Fischman, author of the Communicate! blog. Dennis is a “community builder” who helps nonprofits tell their stories. We share a family name (although we’re not related) and a love of working with nonprofits. Given Dennis’s passion for communications, storytelling, and social media, I look forward to his thoughts on writing.