Okay, so sometimes life gives you lemons. I know you all know this. I've gone through some good years and some bad. I'm currently in the middle of quite the lemony year.
Things at work are stressful. My son's car died just a few months after we bought it. So we poured more money into it. Writing stuff. Yeah, I'll just leave it at that.
But I can't seem to stop writing. I've decided it's the best medicine to a lemon-filled life. It's an escape--and always has been for me. I started writing eight years ago as a method of escape from a really sucktacular year.
When I stopped writing last year, things got even more sour. Now that I'm back at the drafting thing, I'm feeling more centered. Not everything I write is great, or even good. But it doesn't matter. I'm writing. And that's been making things a little easier to swallow.
What about you? Does just the act of writing help you?
2014 was an awful year for me. Just awful. I wouldn't have gotten through the end of it without writing. It kept me sane. This year is off to a rocky start, which is why I drafted a novella last month. It helped. Today, I'm swamped with edits. Hence, the breakfast of pure bacon to get me through. ;)
ReplyDeleteI am who I want to be when I write. It is like the real me, buried for years, finally dug herself from below the mud and gunk of every day life. I started writing in eighth grade. I wrote until my mid twenties and then I mostly stopped. When I started again, many years later I realized all that time I had not been a whole person. I'd been missing myself. So glad you have had this realization. Writing doesn't stop the lemons from coming, but it sure relieves a lot of the bitterness.
ReplyDeleteWriting does help especially when I'm not being critical of it. I remember when it was extremely relaxing and almost Zen for me. Lately, I've been putting pressure on myself so I've been overthinking a ton on what I'm writing. I shouldn't do that because it takes away from the fun. There are manuscripts I do go back to that allow me to remember the fun and then I can get back into. That probably didn't make sense. :) I'm glad you are seeing the joy again. I'm no expert but the rockiness will come and go but the stories and characters will always remain, waiting to be unleashed.
ReplyDeleteI really want to get back to my writing as soon as I get my work situation set a bit more. I think it's going to make me feel a lot better and I'm sure going through a rough year too.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Writing is such an embedded part of my person that putting it off and ignoring it for long periods of time leaves me wanting. And it's the need to free the character voices waiting patiently - sometimes impatiently - to be heard. I've come to accept that whether I publish a story or not, it's the release that is fulfilling.
ReplyDeleteWriting helps A LOT.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I find revising more therapeutic than drafting. First drafts come with their own stress for me.
The world we live in is a great deal out of our control due to an ever-growing list of factors.
ReplyDeleteIn our prose world, we get to set the parameters, to speak those lines we thought about hours after the occasion had passed, and we determine who wins and loses. How could that not be great? :-)
I've found the same thing. When I graduated from high school, I assumed that I wasn't supposed to write anymore, since I was going to 'grow up.' After having a miscarriage, failing a class, almost dropping out of nursing school, having panic attacks, I went back to writing, and I've never put it away since. I think it's my way of escaping, because I know I write more when I'm stressed.
ReplyDeleteYup - writing (especially those first drafts!!!) helps me cope. We've had a lot of tough stuff lately too - and it does help to be able to escape to a world where I know the characters will get their HEAs :)
ReplyDeleteIt must be therapy for me too...or a method of procrastination. I get my best ideas and my largest drive to write when I have a stack of grading and report cards to do with parent/teacher conferences around the corner. Glad you're writing and that it's something you can turn to when life's rough!
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear 2015's not been great so far. I guess it can only go up? Love your new Elemental covers, btw.
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