Keep in mind that English is the most widely spoken language in the world (despite the fact that Chinese and Spanish both have far, far more /native/ speakers.) A person who writes in English has the broadest available market of readers.

Additionally, I’ve noticed that sometimes the mistakes that expert second-language speakers make are not much more embarrassing or difficult to understand than those made by native speakers. ;)

As for why writers choose to write in a language that is not their first language, some of them may be more comfortable with their second language. In other cases, the decision may be motivated by the fact that there is no market for whatever the author is writing in his or her native language. Sometimes, the reason is that the language has comparatively few speakers and/or few publishers, which is also why a lot of so-called postcolonial literature by writers from Africa, India, the Caribbean, etc… is written in the language of the former colonizers rather than the authors’ mother tongue. With genre literature there is the additional problem that even in many western countries, publishers prefer to buy the rights to a book that was already successful in the US/UK rather than take a chance on a local author.

My instinct would be to agree with you though.

My only thing, to the guy wanting to write but worried about language skills, I would say definitely write in your native language, or the language you dream in. I know that sounds corny, but dreams are a strong measure of how well you intuit the language and convey information. Write as naturally as possible and then translate it yourself or get someone else to do it.

Still this is a good and down to earth way to tell me you just do it or don’t. And I will start by putting the ideas down and choosing one to start a plot for it.