This is my first post here, and naturally, I was trying to think of a title that would draw attention to itself.  Maybe this one will work.  The question is not rhetorical.  I'm genuinely curious.

I know why I write.  For love of the craft, certainly and foremost.  For the attention, most definitely.  Because I'm actually pretty good at it, thank goodness. 

But all that said, I write because I can't help it.  It's more than a bug.  It's the disease that most people who write actually should have, but many don't.  It's a sickness-like urge that causes me to sneeze in the middle of writing a really good sentence, or a suddenly get a full bladder that needs to be emptied, interrupting a really good train of thought.  It wakes me up in the middle of the night with fevers of fleeting thoughts that escape my crowded mind before I can write them down.

Too many people write baloney.  I would say bullshit, but this is my first post, and I'm trying to ease into my voice.  And too much of the bull-loney sells.  ARgggggh! (That's a scream.)  Bull-loney dimishes and insults, in my not-so-humble opinion, the integrity of the craft.

I hesitate to admit that I even considered my own first book, and while some of it was really good, like I had to even say to myself, "Damn, that's pretty good," when I read it back to myself, I can recognize the "Eh Factor" in other parts of it.  I should have done better.  I will do better.  Particularly with the editing. 

I want to be/am a good, strong and credible writer, and for someone who loves writing the way I love writing (sometimes, it loves me back), I owe the debt of best effort to this gift that owns me.

More than anything, I love to be read.  If people buy  my book(s), great.  If not, I'll give them away.  Send me your email address.  Book forthcoming.

I promise.  I don't need the money.  That's why I have a day job, and a forthcoming, relatively certain retirement.  I'm not rich, but I'm not starving, except for the validation that only readers can give a writer.  But I want to give readers their read's worth.  Even if their validation will come in the form of a bad review.  So be it.  All the better for me.

I don't ever want to be an "Eh Factor" writer.  And to recognize the "eh" in one's own work is disheartening.

But yet, there is a sea of "writers" out there, many crowding the Best Sellers lists, and can't write worth a damn.  Their first craft is acting, or singing (or something like it), or politics, or being famous for the sake of fame.  And next thing you know, they got the urge to be writers.  AND get published.  Phooey on them!  Especially on the writers who don't even read (that's a whole other blog), but have the nerve to want to peddle some nonsense to somebody else.  Phooey and yuck! 

If it doesn't bother you to be an "Eh Factor" writer, as long as you're selling books, then you should ought to stop writing.  Yes, I said, "should ought."  Felt right.

Phooey, by the way, is one of my favorite words,ever.  I rarely, if ever, use it when meaning something else.

So, my question remains.  Why the hell do you write?  What do you really want out of it, and what, if anything, are you putting into it?