OK, this strictly isn't off-topic, but I didn't want to clutter up the main forum with my inane chunterings. Who else finds it impossible to not be writing something? My book is still being proofed, my cover is being designed. I'm in no rush to publish it. I still have to write my reader's magnet. I purposely got my projects to a suitable state where I could put a pin in them (I got my second book off the ground before finishing the first, so I could dive right in), and leave them alone for a month or two, to enjoy writing nothing, nada, fuck-all for a while, and do normal things like read, play the playstation and drink beer in the evenings. You know what? It's impossible. I cannot stop. Writing has became a kinda default activity for me. Hell, I even think in prose much of the time. Am I alone in this?
'Writing' for me is a synonym for being curious. This activity can encompass actual writing, or researching, or plotting, or searching for logical holes, or even sitting with friends that are shooting the shit, letting my creativity run wild and applying the resulting ideas to my own story. It's not only writing words down, far from it. And 'writing' in the above definition is something I simply can't stop, nor would I want to. It widens my world, so why would I ever want it to stop? It's my inner fox and hedgehog combined that made/makes life so interesting since I started my story. I am addicted to this curiosity. It's all about being me.
I pretty much write all the time - I nearly always have multiple projects on the go and work on them in sequence while one is being edited or proofed or whatever i am writing or doing edit revisions on another
I have no problem quitting when I'm busy with other stuff. But I imagine that if I stopped writing and didn't have something else to fill the time, I'd probably default back to writing as something to do. And this is for a pretty narrow definition of "writing", like, actually typing fictional words onto a screen. If it were expanded to include daydreaming or other imaginative activities, I'm sure I'd have a much harder time giving it up.
Not impossible since there are people who give up writing. Impossible for some More difficult to stop for some than for others. Factors such as previous success or the need to escape social problems by writung will influence the decision. For example, a writer who has been very successful, such as Isaac Asimov or Stephen king are extremely unlikely to stop writing. In contrast, those who receive nothing but rejection slips will be considering giving up the effort consatantly and is far more likely to abandon the activiity in order to avoid further frustration. Of course, the motive for writing is also an important factor. Are we doing it for the money we expect to make or are we writing because we love the activity itself? Are we writing to escape the bitterness of a very difficult situation or are we writing to convey just how happy we feel? Are we writing in order to preseve prescious memories? To vent irate steam? All these will determine the probability of the decision.
To stop writing is easy. Few weeks after death hands slowly stop hitting keyboard. Those few weeks might be a bit frustrating to the family members.
The old advice used to be 'if you can stop writing, you should'. It's a hard way to make a living, and, for most people who aren't really into it, a waste of time; first novels are rarely published, and just writing one novel is unlikely to make you a household name. The people who can't stop are much more likely to get somewhere; if you keep writing and make each story better than the last, it's hard not to eventually produce something that people want to read.
Hello friend. No, you aren't alone on this matter. I found myself to pop out my Microsoft word page and writing. It's like we are under some spell. So yeah it's normal, and those who say otherwise are blind.
I have a love-hate relationship with writing. There are times I'm writing where I should be doing something else, but more frequently lately, there are times when I really should be writing that I can't bring myself around to it.
Isn't reading posts here just a way to find more to write about? Me finding it hard or impossible to stop would be considered quite funny by most any of the school teachers that I had in my youth (if any of them were still around) back then I was said to hate writing, it turned out that I hated the part where I had to work a pen. My hand just got so painful with the worst of it being the lump on my finger from holding the pen or pencil too tight. The keyboard works much better even though I never forced myself to learn touch typing.
OMG, I can really relate to that. I was NEVER able to write very much with a pen. I didn't start doing creative writing till I got my first wordprocessor, back in 1994. I did learn touch typing, but I was never any good at it till I started 'writing.' Now I go at a blistering speed that would have astonished my typing teacher! Of course mistakes are easily corrected on a computer. Not so much on a typewriter. Circular eraser and brush. Erasable bond paper. Typing correction paper. Tipp-Exx. Purple mimeograph blanks. Carbon paper. Stencil blanks. All happily consigned to history, as far as I'm concerned. Delete key is my Friend.
When I started on my WIP and the couple of flash fiction pieces I have completed (but not submitted anywhere yet) I was already writing but not knowing it. I was a regular in a writing/reading forum on the old AOL (chatroom use is writing, isn't it?), and it was there that I was encouraged to try my hand at writing a story. Little did I know at the time but in my attempt to write a short story was the first action in me creating a monster. I was able to escape for a while, but being stuck here has allowed it to catch up with me. On the other hand, I don't really dislike my monster, I just wish that if I'm going to be pressed into creating it I could get more help with it... maybe it could just help me with all the errors that Grammarly is saying I have in it without me having to pay the price for the paid version.
