A Writer's Notebook, Day One-Thousand-Five-Hundred-And-Sixty-Nine

The other day I was asked to think about my motivations and intentions as a writer.  Discussing these things often feels very pretentious to me, but that doesn't mean it isn't useful at times, if only as a form of self-assessment.  Indeed, if I consider it with any degree of scrutiny, the act of writing itself is a bit pretentious no matter what.  There is an egotism to the idea of being an artist of any sort, I would think, as it always requires a sense that one has an important or worthwhile perspective, one that others should experience.  That is, I think, an essential aspect of being a writer.  Indeed, when I discuss the purpose for my writing, I tend to think of it as a way to share an aspect of a subjective experience in some way, and for that to seem worthwhile, there must be a sense that this internal dimension is meaningful or significant.  That does not, of course, require that one think of it as uniquely important, can imagine that each mind's subjective experience is worth sharing, of course, but I think, even in those cases, the desire to do it, the belief that one can, all of it is clearly a bit ego-driven.  Maybe that is just my own experience of it, though.  There are certainly writers who will speak of their process as a way to drive out ego instead.