As part of a continuing blog swap phenomenon, I am honored to have Mr. Bert Carson at the RoW Studios today! Bert and I met on Twitter last year and I have to say we hit it off immediately. (Truth is, he was enamored with my chosen avatar attire, but that’s a story for another time.) Bert was one of the first authors to join RABMAD (Read a Book, Make a Difference), which is no surprise because Bert is one of the most selfless, genuine people I have met in this lifetime. This past week he was kind enough to extend an invitation to me to swap blogs. I immediately accepted. Bert and I decided we would each write about the ages-old question for authors: Why I Write? My guest post on his blog can be read here. With all that said, and without further delay, heeeeeere’s Bert!

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Author Bert Carson

Why I write isn’t a question.  It’s half a statement.  The entire phrase is, I write because…  I’m not going to finish the statement until I’ve told you who I am.  Don’t leave.  I’m not going to bore you with a bio – if you’re interested, you can read my Amazon Author’s Page.  To understand why I write, you must know what I’ve learned about myself and the universe in the past 69 nine years (yep, I lied, I’m a whole lot older than Rob).  However, don’t be alarmed about the possible length of this post.  I am going to stay within the 600 – 800 word range that Rob and I established for this blog exchange.

So here’s what I know and understand – I don’t use the word know lightly.  If I were only guessing or hoping, I would have said, “I believe.”  With that disclaimer out of the way, here goes:  I know that the life force that manifests as me, the life force that manifests as you, as every person on the planet, comes onto this planet with things to do.   I don’t mean that I believe everyone has a mission from God.   I would never belittle The Almighty with that notion.  What I mean is every one of us has something to do that will bring us joy.  Our task is to do it.  I’m not talking about a career path or a public service task that has been assigned by parents, teachers, or mentors.  I’m talking about the thing we do that brings us joy.  A thing we have no explanation for doing beyond the fact that it brings us joy.

I’ve known for as long as I can remember that telling stories would bring me joy.  I’ve never had an explanation for the joy storytelling gives me, and I’ve never made one up.  When someone asks, “why do you enjoy telling stories?” I simply say, “I don’t know why, I just know that’s the way it is.”

I was born and raised in the Southern Baptist tradition.  My first experience of storytelling was listening to speakers address an audience.  I was five when I decided that was the way I would tell stories.  At age seven, I encountered a serious obstacle.  I discovered that I had a knee-knocking fear of speaking in public.  I didn’t give up my desire to tell stories, nor did I seek another way to do it.  I attacked my fear of speaking, and I’m pleased to report that thirty-two years after I uncovered the fear, I overcame it, and became a professional speaker.

My speaking career was doing well, when in Missoula, Montana, in the early eighties, a story came to me that was too long to tell from the stage.  I had to write it.   I jumped into writing with both feet.  After all, I thought, writing is just another way to tell a story.  I loved putting the story on paper, as much, or more, than I loved telling stories to audiences.  I wrote, “The End,” on the final page of Fourth and Forever and began sending query letters to agents.  In six months, I accumulated 412 agent rejections, though not one of them read the book.

That was enough rejection for me, but I couldn’t stop writing.  Now, thanks to Jeff Bezos vision of Amazon.com, eBooks, and Kindle readers, I now have a publishing platform that operates without agents, and I have published three books.  This month, with my wife, Christina, I will publish Truth – Yours, Mine, Ours, a book that we penned the first draft of more than fourteen years ago.  Also this month, or early next month, I’ll publish my fourth novel, Maddog & Miss Kitty, and by mid-summer I plan to add two more novels to my book list.

Now, back to the topic, I write for the joy of writing.  Someday, I intend to write full-time (that means no day job) but first, and foremost, I write for the joy of it.  If the day ever comes that the joy in writing leaves me, I will simply find another way to tell my stories.