Painting the Picture

I've always wanted to be a writer. Ever since I was eleven or twelve, at least. And ever since I started writing papers for English classes in high school, people have been telling me that I have a natural gift for writing and that I should develop that gift. But it's not just that I have a natural aptitude for words-- I truly do love to write. It's not just words on a page. It's not just the shortest distance between A and B. It's an art form. It's creating, painting, building, drawing word by word, sentence by sentence, chapter by chapter, a picture, a form, a concept that, in the mind, can be seen, heard, touched and examined from all angles.
There is a picture that begins in my mind with no words. The picture grows, develops, becomes more and more beautiful, and, as I behold it, I am compelled deep from within to share that picture with others. I must transfer that picture, that form, that concept from my own mind to the minds of others by some means. And the more precisely, the more vividly, the more effectually I paint that picture in the minds of my readers, the more perfectly they will understand what has been in my mind. That is the message. The message is the transfer, but the transfer needs a more concrete vehicle. That is writing.