Why I write. And write. And write.

Several years ago, I was standing in an elderly lady’s cottage, just north of Christchurch, New Zealand. The house was an old, small, one bedroom dwelling next to a large pine forest. She had lived there for years, and it was where she spent most hours of the day.

The house was cracking in half.

The woman told me that she lived in fear of the house collapsing on her as she slept in the small bedroom. She was dealing with leaks through the ceilings and the walls, and the floors were increasingly becoming uneven. Like many in New Zealand, she had little savings to fix anything.

Christchurch was devastated by two earthquakes in 2010 and 2011 - the first earthquake shook the city to its core. The second almost destroyed it.

New Zealand has a somewhat unique insurance scheme, in which the government pays to repair damage from natural disasters (up to a point). It was put in place after a devastating earthquake and fire in the city of Napier in 1931, but in the almost century since, had never had to be deployed on scale. When Christchurch was almost destroyed by earthquakes, it was woefully unprepared and under-resourced.

I discovered that the woman whose cottage I found myself standing in, had fallen through the literal and metaphoric cracks.

Christchurch, New Zealand. A beautiful city that has endured more than it's fair share of tragedy.

So I interviewed her. I had a cameraman with me, and we filmed her story of dealing not only with the trauma of the earthquakes, but the lack of help afterwards. We put words to page and prepared to both broadcast the story on national radio and publish it on one of the top news websites. I called the insurance scheme for comment.

It was a Friday.

On Monday, I was invited to the Christchurch headquarters of that government insurance scheme to interview the chief executive. In that interview, she apologised to the woman, and immediately promised to fix her cottage. 

At that moment, sitting back at my desk in our small newsroom, how powerful our words could be. We could change lives and hold the powerful to account. Reshape the world in a way that is better and fairer.

Today, my writing is somewhat different, but the goal remains the same. I spend my days analysing world events, reading about history, and composing prose that attempts to explain it all in a way that makes people not only understand, but makes them care.

When I write fiction, I attempt to do the same. Crafting narratives that mean something. That entertains, yes, but also makes people think. Makes people better.

Some may think this goal is arrogant, naive, or comes from a place of delusion. Many have told me so directly. But I think back to the woman in the cottage, whose life changed for the better from the words I wrote.

Words have power.

Words can change the world.

That is why I write.