{"id":3425,"date":"2014-06-18T08:49:16","date_gmt":"2014-06-18T12:49:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ChristyEnglish.com\/?p=3425"},"modified":"2014-06-18T09:28:06","modified_gmt":"2014-06-18T13:28:06","slug":"reflections-on-writing-for-joy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ChristyEnglish.com\/?p=3425","title":{"rendered":"Reflections on Writing for Joy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ChristyEnglish.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Butterfly-on-Stone.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-3229 lazyload\" alt=\"Butterfly on Stone\" data-src=\"http:\/\/www.ChristyEnglish.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Butterfly-on-Stone.jpg\" width=\"442\" height=\"332\" data-srcset=\"http:\/\/www.ChristyEnglish.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Butterfly-on-Stone.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/www.ChristyEnglish.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Butterfly-on-Stone-300x225.jpg 300w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 442px) 100vw, 442px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 442px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 442\/332;\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-3229\" alt=\"Butterfly on Stone\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ChristyEnglish.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Butterfly-on-Stone.jpg\" width=\"442\" height=\"332\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.ChristyEnglish.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Butterfly-on-Stone.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/www.ChristyEnglish.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Butterfly-on-Stone-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 442px) 100vw, 442px\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p>There are a lot of reasons to write: to explore our inner thoughts, to build worlds, to tell stories that bring our readers joy, books that\u00c2\u00a0make the world a better place. But I have to admit, the reason I write is so that I can tell stories to myself. I am my first audience, the first one who reads over the work and laughs or cringes at it. Before I begin to edit, before I begin to think of\u00c2\u00a0my readers, or my\u00c2\u00a0editor, I think of myself. I think of\u00c2\u00a0my own joy, and of the joy I find in building worlds, in watching characters move across the page, across the screen of my mind, people who are more daring and more adventurous than I will ever be. I write for joy. And that is the best reason I can think of ever to pick up a pen. Or in this case, turn on my laptop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are a lot of reasons to write: to explore our inner thoughts, to build worlds, to tell stories that bring our readers joy, books that\u00c2\u00a0make the world a better place. But I have to admit, the reason I write is so that I can tell stories to myself. I am my first audience, the &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ChristyEnglish.com\/?p=3425\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Reflections on Writing for Joy<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":""},"categories":[209,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ChristyEnglish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3425"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ChristyEnglish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ChristyEnglish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ChristyEnglish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ChristyEnglish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3425"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.ChristyEnglish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3427,"href":"http:\/\/www.ChristyEnglish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3425\/revisions\/3427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ChristyEnglish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ChristyEnglish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ChristyEnglish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}