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Are You Addicted To Your Writing?

By on October 25, 2017
Are You Addicted To Your Writing? - Writer's Life.org

When it comes to writing are you one of those writers who procrastinates, and finds every excuse, however random, to delay doing your work, or are you one of those who find themselves waking in the middle of the night in a hot, excited sweat and simply can’t wait until morning to write their ideas down?

Perhaps you are both!

Many writers find that the way they write chops and changes and some days they lose all track of time and suddenly the sun has gone down, and they realise they haven’t eaten anything since breakfast, but others they sit and stare at their computer screen for hours and nothing seems to come out.

Neither way necessarily means you are a better or worse writer. However, when your writing is going well it can feel as though it is impossible to stop - and that’s a wonderful feeling indeed.

So are you addicted to your writing? Here are some signs that you just might be!

You have a list of favourite authors you’d love to meet - your authors are your inspiration, and out of all the people you’d like to have at a dinner party, they top your list.

Your house is full of scraps of paper and half used notebooks full of ideas. You always find yourself thinking of a new idea, or even a sentence or phrase you just love and are constantly writing them down. You might not use them all in the end, but you’ve always got a trusty notebook with you regardless!

You turn down parties because you’d rather stay in and write. Sometimes the world you’ve created through your stories is just more interesting than the real one!

You find yourself daydreaming about your book when out and about. Do you find yourself only half-listening to conversations, or just start imagining your world and characters when out on a walk or travelling by public transport? Sometimes it’s hard to stop thinking about them, and why not?

You chat to your characters in your head. Do your characters feel real to you? Do you talk to them in your head? You aren’t going insane; it’s just another great way to get to know them better.

You can’t get to sleep because you are thinking about your stories. Sometimes we just have too much going on, and can’t switch off. If this happens to you, it’s often better to just get up and start writing it out!

When you get in the writing zone hours, pass like minutes. Being in writing ‘zone’ is one of the most satisfying things to happen to a writer. When it does time seems to fly by!

You get a funny knot in your stomach when you think of a new fantastic writing project or ideas. Writing motivates and excites you, and when you think of some great new idea you can’t help but get butterflies!

You find time to write your novel even when there is none. Writing is a priority to you, even if you’ve got a full-time job, a house to run and kids to look after, you still find time to get your writing done!

You know if you stopped writing you’d be miserable/ go insane! Writing isn’t just about creating your stories. It’s part of who you are and what you do. If you stopped, you don’t know what you’d do with yourself!

Do any of these sound familiar? If so you may well be addicted to your writing! Not that that’s a bad thing of course!

Bethany Cadman -author of 'Doctor Vanilla's Sunflowers'

Bethany Cadman -author of 'Doctor Vanilla's Sunflowers'

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