The Best Reasons to Write

And one of the worst.

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

Those who frequent Medium, Twitter, Facebook, Quora, and any number of other text-based locations all have something in common. That’s the love of the word. Those word’s don’t have to be English, or even make any grammatical sense. Thousands of non-sensical word based memes get that point driven home well enough.

What does matter though is communication. Conveying your idea with another person is a thrill. For most people, it may be a small one. A small thrill associated with something akin to, “Check out this milkshake I drank today!” alongside a picture of what I imagine to be some kind of mint-flavoured, chocolate loaded, green, gut-busting monstrosity from Dairy Queen…. too specific?

For others, it’s a huge thrill. Perhaps you’ve written a novel, telling the tale of a journey that transcends space and time and ventures deep into the depths of the human experience. Maybe you’ve written a technical brief, explaining, in excruciating detail how something works. Or, maybe you’ve written an article that explains some goings-on in your life. In any of these examples, you’ve shared your idea, and when those ideas are received, understood, validated, and even contested, it’s a thrill.

There are many reasons why you may write, and I’m going to list some of the best ones I can think of. There are definitely others, but lets start with these.

You Are a Subject Matter Expert, and Want to Solidify That

Photo by Shubham Sharan on Unsplash

This is an interesting one, and I start with it not because it is the most important, but because it’s often overlooked. Many people assume that for you to be an authority in a subject, you basically need to have invented it. You might assume that the people responsible for the REACT framework are the only authorities on it, but in just me writing that you realize that I’ve told a lie. They aren’t, there are many, many others.

Being a subject matter expert isn’t something that just happens. It takes time. However, sitting on your hands isn’t going to magically turn you into a subject matter expert…