Obsession

My name is Doug and I’m a write-aholic. I can’t stop myself. The other day I didn’t write anything and I started to go through detox. It wasn’t pretty watching myself shaking and sweating. My legs were weak. The headache that accompanied all those other symptoms was impressive, too. As soon as I sat down and wrote something, I didn’t feel any better. Now that I think about it, it may have been that I tried to jog for the first time in a few months that caused all those problems. Lesson learned: Just write, don’t jog.

Before I tried my hand – or more accurately, fingers – at writing, hearing about writers who had to write seemed silly. They had to be making up stories that made them seem so much more important than they really were. I mean really, who in their right mind could possibly have a compulsion to write? No one. I still think that’s a correct assessment. No one in their right or left mind could have that overwhelming desire to put words on paper or screen. Speaking as someone who is more than a little odd (I prefer eccentric which sounds a lot better that than weird) and a lot out of my right mind, writing is my obsession.

There are days when I look at the screen and wonder what will be on there by the end of the day. There are also days when I look at the screen and know exactly what I’m going to write, which usually turns out nothing like I planned. Then there are days like today when my mind is running the gamut with a desire to write a historical novel that has been floating around in my mind for a couple weeks to a current day psychological thriller (yes, Abby Chilton’s sequel is in my head) to a near-future, scifi story about the internet. I have no clue what I will write today, only that I will write.

Writing is more than what I do. It is who I am. Writers’ obsession with words allows them to give a piece of themselves to others through their words. Those words give readers a glimpse inside the heads, hearts and spirits of the writer in ways a non-writer can never share. When you read my writing, I am allowing you inside. You can see bits and pieces of me in every character, every scene, and every nuance I create with simple words. Trust me, it is more of surprise to me than you.

As a very private person – notorious among my family, friends and acquaintances for not allowing any one person to see the whole picture that is me – the idea that I am sharing so much of myself with total strangers all around the world is astonishing. Yet, it shouldn’t be. As a writer, this allows me to open up in ways that I am incapable of doing in my day to day life. This is a safe place to be myself fearlessly. All of my strangeness can be laid out for all the world to see. My madness – both anger and insanity – can be channeled into words on a page to make others laugh, cry and wonder.

If someone does not like my writing due to style, subject matter, or bad taste (mine or theirs), I can live with that. Like everyone else, I want to be liked, loved and told all kinds of nice things. But, I also know that not everyone will like me and the things I have to say. Writing allows me to be myself and let the chips fall where they may.

Writing is my passion and my obsession. It is my art and my science. These simple words are the way I take you into my heart, my mind, my world. Come along with me and let’s explore where places that only the mind of an eccentric madman can go.