Writing From Loneliness

[Beethovenfan]

I think there is only one requisite to calling yourself a writer and it has a caveat.

You must write. There are no other qualifiers.

The caveat is that you must also finish what you write. Otherwise you are a writing hamster, running in circles, and while it may be great fun, you will get no where fast.

Hmm, I do have a treadmill - the human version of a hamster wheel in my opinion. And I do have two projects I'm working on... for the past year now. When I start sprouting fur then I'll know I'm in trouble!

[writersink]

I think my main reason for writing is the need to be in complete control over something, and to be the one who builds the worlds and decides what people say, and put my characters through tough times where I know the exact outcome, even if it isn't a nice one.

I think that's the reason that I write. When I'm going through something that I just can't control and when I'm stressed and pushed beyond my own measure, I can go in someone else's life and make theirs even worse. I've found that a lot of times, I focus much more on my writing when I'm stressed. Then I can go in my character's life and burn down their house... or something else just as awful, and then I come out of it and I say, 'Well, at least my life isn't that bad.' I guess it could be considered therapy. Plus, even when my characters go through so much, I can decide the outcome, which gives me hope that maybe I can make it through whatever's going on in my life.

Ah yes, burning down imaginary houses is a great stress reliever My family thinks I'm weird but hey... it's free therapy!

[trixie]

It seems to me that beginning one's writing at a young age is a pre-requisite, and I don't have it. I didn't begin to seriously write until well into adulthood. I didn't write little snippets of this and that when I was a kid. I was always outside building forts and playing cowboys and aliens with my brothers.

Beethoven, I was thinking the same thing reading this thread! When I was younger, I liked being creative and I really enjoyed fairytales. I wanted to be a princess and all the jazz. But somewhere along the way, I stopped reading books. Instead, I received a diary for my 10th birthday. I guess you could say I've been a memoirist for over 20 years. But I never created a story, let alone imagined a world and characters, until I was in my 30s.

I may have gotten a late start to writing stories, but I like to consider my years of pining over the cute boys in my journals as "training."