WARNING: READING THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE MAY IMPROVE MENTAL HEALTHJust thinking lately about the things that drive my own writing, I have been wondering how much of my drive actually qualifies as some sort of dysfunction. OK, so you are nodding your heads wondering why it's taken me so long to figure this out for myself, and it's just par for the course. Still . . .
How much is enough? The answer, arising from the voice of dysfunction, is of course that no amount is ever enough. And what is the goal? Well, for me it is a complex mix of love of story, the need to bring that thing into creation, to experience that flow of words - and some other elements that are more in the way of demons. There is something under the hood that drives me to reach for some sense of connection to fill a personal void. Is that healthy? Is it like functional drug addiction? I don't know, who can judge it?
Not all writers are striving the fill the inner void like some crazy Japanese Kitsune armed with a word processor. But for those of us who are, my question is: are there other ways to fill that same need? Wouldn't writing be a more enjoyable activity, wouldn't the success that comes (how little or how much), the criticism, all be that much easier to deal with if there was not a desperate need that underpinned all the striving?
Sometimes it is worth stepping back and looking at it all - yourself, your goals, what your expectations are. And maybe, just maybe some therapy might help.
So what do you think? Can artistic achievement fill the psychological void? What drives your passion for writing, and how much of that verges on obsession?
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