What does writing mean to you?

Although I have not yet seen the movie Freedom Writers, this article made me think a lot about what writing means to me.

I've always been a writer, in every sense of the word, for as long as I can remember. I have boxes full of journals chronicling my childhood and adolescence. It's crossed my mind a few times lately that they are probably horribly sentimental, but that my kids and grandkids will probably be quite happy to have them someday.

That's not all of what this article is talking about, though. It's talking about what writing means, not what the end result means.

Writing is, quite literally, everything to me. It's how I earn my living, how I (attempt to) drive traffic to my website, how I celebrate the happy events of my life and heal from the unhappy ones. Writing is also how we create this online community of freelancers, how we communicate with our clients, friends, and loved ones, and how we relay valuable information to each other, such as warnings about nonpaying clients.

Writing is our way of life.

And, since all of life is connected, let me take this moment to remind you of one of my most passionate causes: to inform, remind, beg and plead other writers not to write for slave wages! If writing is everything to us, why should we give it away?