✍️Writing is a skill, just like speaking, dancing, or singing. It is also a form of creative art. The quality and depth of our writing often depend on our knowledge, experiences, observations, and ability to reflect.
But the kind of writing I am talking about here is different. I am not talking about writing out of necessity—homework, an essay for university admission, a research article required for graduation, a report for work, or anything else we have to write.
🎉I am talking about writing when there is no necessity to write.
Journaling. Blogging. Writing books. Fiction. Non-fiction. Writing a weekly journal. Writing down thoughts that nobody asked for and that may bring no direct benefit to your profession or career.
Then why do people write? ✍️
😇I think the person who feels overflowing emotions writes. The person who is deeply impacted by something writes. The person who simply loves writing writes. The intention to write somehow has to become stronger than all the distractions around us. When that happens, the mind finds time to write—just as easily as it somehow finds time to scroll through the phone.
🥰I usually write when my emotions are overflowing. I journal them. Recently, I have started feeling an urge to write articles. People who write regularly probably understand this feeling. Sometimes you don't simply want to write. You need to write. It becomes an urge similar to talking. At some point, you cannot hold it inside anymore.
Sometimes I think about people from ancient times. They carved stories onto stones and cave walls—stories of wars, victories, disasters, people, animals, and everyday life. Not everyone wrote. But someone felt that something was worth recording. Because they did, knowledge, stories, and history traveled across generations. 🪨
When Writing Becomes an Urge
Sometimes the urge to write can itself become a disturbance. Until I write something down, I cannot completely move on to the next thing. I don't know whether this feeling comes from continuously training myself to put my thoughts and ideas into words, or whether it is simply part of being someone who likes to write. But many times, I have wanted to work on something else while my mind remained completely occupied by a particular thought.
I need to write it first. Let it out. Sometimes even vent it out to the world. Only then does my mind make space for something else.
Writing Changes the Way You Observe 👀
The more writing consumes you, the more you begin to collect words from the people and world around you. You observe more. You notice people's actions, patterns, reactions, contradictions, and eventually, their intentions. Writing somehow creates a calm river inside you. 🌊
And eventually, you begin to trust that you have the ability to return to that river whenever you need it. When something happens, you experience it. You observe it. You let yourself be there. And somewhere in your mind, you know:
I will write about this later.
That thought itself can reduce the chaos of overthinking. Events still impact you. Sometimes deeply. But once writing becomes a habit, you may begin to process those events with more stability and clarity. Your mechanism for releasing emotions slowly shifts from constantly talking about them to writing about them. And writing gives you something conversation sometimes cannot: the time to sit with a thought before deciding what it means.
What Does Writing Need?
Writing needs knowledge.
It needs observation.
It needs the ability to think from the audience's perspective.
It needs patience.
And, at least for me, it needs the right environment. 🌿📚
Different environments bring different essences to the same topic. Write about something while sitting in a library, and you may approach it one way. Write about the same thing while sitting by a river, and somehow the words may come differently. The environment around me has always added something to my writing.
I also feel that people who love writing often connect differently with other people who write. When another writer talks about their thoughts, characters, ideas, unfinished sentences, or the strange urge to put something into words, you understand exactly what they mean.
It feels as though you recognize their world. And, little by little, you allow them into yours too. 🤍
Writing Is Storytelling
Writing is a form of storytelling. You have to set the stage for your audience and tell the story the way you see it. Sometimes, to tell a story effectively, you add a little "makeup" to the narration—not necessarily to change the truth, but to help people arrive at the point you are trying to make. Some stories affect us deeply because they seem to have very little makeup and a lot of truth. But truth alone does not always make powerful writing.
There is a delicate trade-off between narration and reality, between how something happened and how you choose to tell it. To write well, I believe you need real-world experience. You need knowledge. You need to read widely. You need to dissect writing, read between the lines, and understand not only what someone has written but also the emotion and intention behind it.
Writing and Reading Are Twin Sisters 📖✍️
Somehow, I feel writing and reading are twin sisters with very similar characteristics.
Both need time.
Both need observation.
Both need patience.
Neither necessarily gives you an instant dopamine hit.
And they need each other.
One of the reasons for writing is that someday, somewhere, someone may read it. In that sense, the purpose of writing meets the purpose of reading. Sometimes both reading and writing surprise you.
For example, I once started reading a horror story expecting to feel afraid. Instead, I found myself completely melted by the author's way of writing. The genre promised me fear, but the writing gave me something entirely different.
The same thing happens when I write.
Sometimes I carry a topic in my mind for days. I think I know exactly what I want to say and what I need to include. Then I finally sit down to write—and it comes out completely differently.
That is one of the beautiful things about writing. You may think you are writing to explain something to the world. But somewhere between the first sentence and the last, you discover something about yourself that you didn't know before.
🔥Writing helps you unleash parts of yourself that you may never discover otherwise.
Maybe that is the real reward of writing. Everything else is a bonus. ✨