Having To
Posted on | May 7, 2010 | 8 Comments
Having to write rather than wanting to write can be a marvelous thing. Having to write whether you want to or not. I’m not talking about some person shaking a finger at you and making you sit at your computer, I’m talking about the powerful obsession where every cell in your body screams out that you need to sit down and compose words, that anxiety that makes everything you do that isn’t writing feel wrong. It is a magnificent compulsion and I am loath to deny it.
It isn’t always like that for me and I have trained myself to produce even when I don’t have that inner, throbbing drive, but I love when that drive kicks in. It often happens after I’ve had an idea for a new project and have done some of the background work for it. All those bits and pieces have been swirling around in my head and begin to coalesce into some alchemical gold.
I will be washing dishes or driving to the store and the story will suddenly insist on grabbing my attention and grabbing hard. When it happens at home, I run and start taking notes. When it happens on the road, I repeat the phrases I’m hearing in my brain over and over until I can get to a place to write them down. It is almost a completely automatic reaction that I don’t consciously control.
I first noticed this obsession back in college when I was learning acting. I would begin a new role for a new production and would start the homework, the work imagining myself into the circumstances of the person I was to be. Those circumstances would take hold of me and I would obsessively think about them all the time. When I started writing more seriously, the same thing happened but with a slight difference. Whole passages of the piece I was working on would appear as if by magic. It has happened in that moment before sleep and I’ve trained myself to force myself out of bed to get it down. Even if it’s really cold and I can’t find my slippers. It takes a long time for the computer to boot up, so I go over and over the imagery until I can get my word processor open and get it down. If I don’t do that, I’ll either not be able to get to sleep or I will have forgotten it by morning.
Either option makes me grumpy, and we don’t want that to happen.
When I don’t act on these obsessive moments, either by committing them to memory so I can get them down or getting them down right away, the obsession fades and when the obsession fades, it becomes difficult to get back to work. Also, when it fades, I feel like the sun has moved a little further away.
Why do I write? Because I have to. Because I love to. Because I can’t imagine not writing.
~Geoff Hoff
Co-author of the how-to guide On Writing a Short Story.
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May 7th, 2010 @ 9:07 am
This is so true! I’ve decided to leave a notepad and pen by my bed in case the words come to me in that in-between time of falling asleep or waking up.
One of my friends has a pen that lights!
.-= Marisa Birns´s last blog ..Mother’s Day – Twitter Chats Blog Tour =-.
May 7th, 2010 @ 9:13 am
I like the idea of a pen that provides it’s own light! My only issue with that is that I tend to knock things off my bedstand in the middle of the night, so it would quickly be lost to the dust bunnies.
Thanks for your comment!
May 7th, 2010 @ 4:23 pm
Geoff, Totally relate to this. I sometimes scribble on a notecard in the half light of streetlamps through the blinds. Often nearly illegible, yet most of the time, it is enough to capture the detail and magic. Maybe my bits are shorter than yours.
The “have to” write compulsion, when it comes out of the love and passion of the creative spark, is a gift indeed.
Thanks as always for your words of wisdom on the path.
Bobbye Middendorf
The Write Synergies Guru
.-= Bobbye Middendorf´s last blog ..Write Synergies: What It Means — Blog Challenge Post 25 =-.
May 7th, 2010 @ 6:11 pm
You call it “obsessive moments.” I call it “inspiration.” I am always writing on everything and anything I can find whenever an inspiration hits. It’s the craziness of creativity, I suppose, although it doesn’t feel like I’m creating anything. . . . just sort of following the inspiration! Good post!
.-= Martha Giffen´s last blog ..Guest Blogging: How to Get Started =-.
May 7th, 2010 @ 6:33 pm
Thanks Martha! I tell my friends who want to express their creativity that they need to “Embrace the Chaos”. Perhaps I should write a post about that!
Bobbye, those moments when it is just there, when that compulsion is upon you, is the best gift in the world.
May 7th, 2010 @ 7:15 pm
Geoff, Would *love* your take on embrace the chaos! The creative process is almost always messy and can be uncomfortable. The challenge is to stay with it, see it through. I like to talk about making the creator-as-vessel strong enough to withstand the chaos all the way through the birth of the creation. Good luck!
Bobbye
.-= Bobbye Middendorf´s last blog ..Write Synergies: What It Means — Blog Challenge Post 25 =-.
May 7th, 2010 @ 7:42 pm
Bobbye, it is now on my list of future subjects to tackle. Most of the last 28 or so posts came from that list, so you know it will probably end up here.
July 23rd, 2010 @ 10:17 am
[...] love the delightful obsession, this passion, when it comes over me and I really love that I have the ability to engender it. [...]