Why Write?

First, a shout out to David Powers King. A truly awesome person! He posted some awards for me on his blog. If you haven't checked him out, do it. He is working on some pretty amazing stuff.  Now on to my post . . .

  Why write?  The question has plagued me for years.  It bothered me in elementary school when my friends wanted to play and I was too busy writing my mystery novel The ABC Murders (I was a big fan of Agatha Christie and apparently plagiarism).
   It reared its ugly head again, in the sixth grade, when my parents brought my dark poetry into question (clearly I had issues). 
  It even cropped up in high school when my friends wanted me to use my elective for an aerobics class and I stubbornly opted for creative writing.
    It taunted me in college when faced with the dilemma of picking a more practical degree like English Education, or following my heart and diving
into the literary side of things.
   I practically skipped to the registrar office, filling my schedule with delightfully unrealistic courses like: Young Adult Literature, Fiction Writing, Children's Literature, Literary Analysis, English Literature, American Literature, and Multicultural Literature.  To name a few.
  So here I sit, years later, my impractical degree stuffed in a closet somewhere, with an unfinished novel, a mountain of frustration, and a pile of housework giving me a come hither look. 
  Even after all these years, the question is the same.  I know the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over again, expecting different results, but I think my answer lies in the complicated love life of Sheryl Crow.
  Just like she kept going back to her cheating lover, I return to the heartless world of writing.  It is after all, My Favorite Mistake.

What about you?  Why write?