There are thousands of books, blogs and articles devoted to this idea: why do we write? Why is it important to tell stories, to create?

Joan Didion, American author and literary journalist, once wrote:

“All I knew then was what I couldn’t do. All I knew then was what I wasn’t, and it took me some years to discover what I was.

Which was a writer.
By which I mean not a “good” writer or a “bad” writer but simply a writer, a person whose most absorbed and passionate hours are spent arranging words on pieces of paper. Had my credentials been in order I would never have become a writer. Had I been blessed with even limited access to my own mind there would have been no reason to write. I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.”

(For the full essay: http://genius.com/Joan-didion-why-i-write-annotated)

Today’s Writing Prompt: Perfect strangers.

Further Inspiration? It doesn’t matter if you’re published or not. It doesn’t matter if you share your writing with one person or many. If your “most absorbed and passionate hours” are spent writing, then you’re a writer.