And another post on that whole writing psyche thang…

Following up on Michael’s posting of the downsides of being published (and there was Grumpy Old Bookman believing there are no lows…!!), Aliya Whitely of Three Things About Me and the forthcoming Light Reading has written a great post over on the MNW blog on what happens when she stops writing.

It’s something I more than sympathise with.

For me, not writing is like having an itch so aggravating yet utterly inaccessible that it drives me to complete distraction. I go to bed thinking I’ve done fuck-all with my day (which is sometimes true – for example, one day over Christmas I spent four hours playing on a video game which only served to remind why I don’t play video games more often – life is far too short). Other times I lie in bed and dream about another writing project, one that will surpass the previous one until I feel the need to slide out from under the covers and make notes on what could be my “defining work” (which of course never happens – I don’t think a writer ever writes a “defining work” - it’s the readers and critics who make that happen).

I simply can’t switch off. My imagination never takes a holiday – it doesn’t metaphorically lie back on a deck-chair, sipping cold beers whilst watching scantily-clad thoughts walk past. It is this hyperactivity that causes sleepless nights - more so when that imaginative muscle hasn’t worked out during the day.
I’ve made that writer’s pledge to Sarah many times - you know the one? That I “won’t do any writing today, I promise…” And yet during walks through the peak district, meals at fancy restaurants or nights out at the local pub, my mind is formulating plots, then scenes, and finally prose to the extent my hands get twitchy and sweaty in anticipation of writing it all down.

And then there’s the drafting-breaks, those weeks (or in my case days, because I can’t bear a longer pause) between each draft where a writer is meant to wind-down and take a vacation. I can’t do that. My imagination won’t let me, so I end up writing a short story, or a novella or the plot for another book to add to the other story-lines that are mounting up quicker than I am able to write each novel.

Yet while it’s exhausting having an imagination that pretty much feeds on itself and everything around me, I’m not sure I’d have it any other way. As an author, my writing energy feels boundless, but I have no doubt that one day it’ll catch up with age and come to a juddering halt, usually preceded by bouts of writers-block (something I have yet to experience). I know of other authors who find the whole writing process painful - it is something I find quite alien, and for that I’m extremely grateful.

Like Aliya, who I suspect has a similar problem to me, that back-handed gift of being naturally obsessed with writing is something neither of us would willingly discard. My only hope is those closest to me continue to understand why I spend so much time locked away in my imagination and my study – and that I’m really not that fanatical.

Much.