Writing motivation

"What motivates people to write?" my daughter Heather asked me. "Why write about something other people have already written about?"

I thought about it for a moment. I talked about how writers use their own voice to express themselves. When you write, you choose what to put in and what to leave out, you organize it in a way you think makes sense. Writers infuse pieces with their own bias.

When I said those things, she looked at me and said "It's like a piano! There are 88 keys but there are infinite variations." Not only the combination of which keys to play, but rests, tempo, tone and more. When playing a piece that has been played before, each musician adds their own style to it, and each new performance will sound different.

I think it is a wonderful analogy. Putting things into your own voice - writing your own composition - helps give meaning to what you create.