I started out as a disgruntled writer. Revision didn’t come easily. Apathy came naturally. I resisted style and grammar, because why write? Why would it matter? Authors were adults with talent, not children with ideas. Yet I continued to read voraciously anyways. Books fascinated me.

At age eleven, my mother gifted me a copy of Eragon. We were visiting the North Carolina mountains for a church conference. Daylight glowed through the inn’s windows. The soon-to-be-dogeared, blue book was heavy in my hands. Like so many stories that found me as a kid, curiosity claimed me.

The novel was written by Christopher Paolini when he was a teenager. The idea of getting a book published before being a grownup felt revelatory. Locked doors of access burst open when I thought, “Maybe I can do this, too?”

What I noticed in the world became clearer. My grandmother and father laugh themself to tears like I do. One ocean wave is strong enough to knock me down and another a subtle lick at my toes. Training my senses took practice, and so did poetry and prose.

One January, in my late twenties, I reunited with a childhood friend after years of distance. He made a comment I think of often. When I said I was rewriting a novel, he said, “Man, it’s not that I’m not impressed. It’s just a very David thing to do. You’ve been wanting to write books since Eragon, since middle school. You know what I mean?” I knew what he meant.

At this point, writing really is a very David thing to do.

Lately, my writing is haiku. I jot notes about the season I’m in. I soak up birdsongs, treetops, breezes, and the behavior of clouds. I need that quest for specific sensory detail, even if the next novel is what I crave. I need to be reminded I can say much by saying little. What I notice matters.

My disgruntled question, “Why write?” is now answered doubtlessly, “Why not?”