“Why I write?”

Yesterday I featured the reflections of author Orhan Pamuk. On the other end of the spectrum, I found this post about a Muhammed Sallem, a “social media consultant and a top-ranked community member on many social sites” about why he writes. I thought his logic was every bit as valid as the lofty ideals of Pamuk:

The reason why you write actually has a big impact on how you write and what you write about, and understand that identifying this reason can actually help you write better and work faster towards achieving that goal.

For example, when I first started writing online, I was writing a personal diary of sorts. Since I was writing it more as an outlet for self-expression and not as something for public consumption, the blog didn’t look very pretty, it was unstructured, and I didn’t care much about editing the content or writing regularly. However, when I started writing my first social media blog, I approached the matter very differently. What changed?

This writer’s five reasons:

1. Educating Others and Myself
2. Personal Branding
3. Networking
4. Escapism
5. Money

From the aestheticism of a novelist to the pragmatic instincts of a social media consultant, there are a million reasons people write. Tomorrow: Reflections on writing from George Orwell.