Once, when I was eight years old, my mother and I planted a magnolia tree in our backyard. It was early spring, and the air in Beijing carried that particular mix of earth and rain that hints at life waking up. I remember standing there, my hands caked with soil, watching my mother explain how roots grow: “You can’t see them, but they’re always there. They’re what hold everything up.” At the time, I thought she was talking about trees, but now I suspect she was teaching me something larger.
Writing, for me, has always felt like those roots—hidden but vital. It anchors me, nourishes parts of me I don’t often acknowledge, and allows me to stretch outward, toward light. Why do I write and keep writing? It's not just about storytelling or crafting pretty sentences (though, let’s be honest, I do love a perfectly placed semicolon). It’s about survival, growth, and making sense of this very messy, very beautiful thing we call life.
Words as Love Letters to the World
First, let’s get this out of the way: I write because I have no choice. Ask a bird why it sings or a cat why it incessantly smacks at your phone when you’re trying to work; some impulses defy explanation.
But deeper than that, writing is how I connect. Growing up as an only child in a home filled with books and debates about Tang Dynasty poetry, I often felt like a spectator in the theater of human relationships. Writing became my way of stepping onto the stage.
When I moved to New York for a year-long exchange program, I carried the same notebook everywhere. On crowded subway rides or in cafés where the hum of conversation sounded like a love song to possibility, I would scrawl impressions of people I saw—snippets of overheard dialogue, the way someone stirred their coffee as if it were a ritual. Writing made strangers feel like friends. It pulled me out of my head and into the world.
And what a chaotic, wonderful world it is. Like dating, writing reminds me that life is a series of beginnings. Each blank page (or blank text thread, for that matter) is an invitation: What magic might unfold here?
The Fine Mess of Being Human
Of course, writing isn’t always as romantic as I’m making it sound—kind of like relationships. Sometimes, it’s clumsy, awkward, and downright infuriating.
Take last week when I sat down to write a chapter for my next novel. I stared at the screen for two hours, typing and deleting the same sentence until my laptop politely asked, “Are you still there?” Writer’s block is like deciding where to eat on a first date: The options are endless, but none feel quite right.
But here’s the thing I’ve learned, both from writing and real-life relationships: You don’t run from the mess. You lean into it. That’s where the good stuff lives—the tangles where truths hide. When I think back to the hardest things I’ve ever written—a breakup letter that somehow turned into a poem, for instance—I remember the freedom that comes from turning raw emotion into something tangible. It’s like raking through a garden bed, messy and backbreaking, until you find the tiny green shoots hidden underneath.
Writing forces me to face the parts of myself I’d rather ignore. It asks me to be honest, vulnerable, and daring. And isn’t that just dating in a nutshell, too?
Storytelling as Self-Discovery
When I started translating classical Chinese poetry to English, I thought it was just about getting the words right. But I quickly realized translation is less about accuracy and more about interpretation—about finding the heart of what someone else is saying and making it your own.
Dating works the same way. Two people bring their own languages—of love, fear, dreams—and try to mix them into something coherent. It’s not easy. Case in point: I once dated a guy who insisted on bringing playlists to every date. Thoughtful, right? Except that his playlists were exclusively heavy metal interpretations of Disney songs. Don’t get me wrong, I can appreciate a thrash-metal “Let It Go” as much as the next girl, but...yeah, no.
Still, that relationship taught me something about my own love language (and my capacity for musical endurance). Writing has a similar power. Every story I write teaches me a little more about what I value, fear, and yearn for. It’s like holding a mirror to my soul but with the bonus of creative control—because let’s face it, the real-life endings aren’t always satisfying, are they?
The Playlist of Writing (Spoiler: It’s Not Disney Metal)
Speaking of playlists, writing gives me an outlet to craft the soundtrack to my life. In my historical romances, I straddle the boundary between myth and modernity, blending ancient stories with contemporary emotions. This duality feels, to me, like the essence of love: It’s both timeless and fleeting, rooted and fleetingly airborne.
I write because I want to capture it all—the fleeting joy of a flirtation, the gut-punch grief of goodbye, the quiet contentment of knowing someone has memorized how you take your tea. Language is imperfect, of course, but it’s the best tool we’ve got for saying, for showing, “I see you. I feel this, too.”
Writing is my way of keeping the lights on in a world that can sometimes feel impossibly dark. Every sentence, every story, is a small rebellion against the silence.
Roots and Wings
So, why do I write? Because I want to plant something that lasts. Whether it’s a novel, a poem, or just an essay like this one, my hope is always the same: that someone reads it and feels a little less alone. That maybe they laugh at my awkward anecdotes, nod along to my reflections, or see themselves in my words.
Writing teaches me, again and again, that we are all connected—through our stories, our heartbreaks, our hopes for the future. And if I can offer even a fraction of the comfort, insight, or wonder that writing has given me, then it will all have been worth it.
Magnolia trees, I’ve since learned, have roots that dig deep into the soil, resilient through storms. But they also bloom—big, beautiful, and unashamed of their fragility. I like to think writing is the same: grounded yet reaching, creating something beautiful out of life’s seasons.
And that’s why I write.
