Doug Goodman

What has defined my writing in January has been the lack of it.  I havent' been writing because I've been real busy at work.  I haven't had a traditional 40-hour work week since mid-December.  This is not a complaint - I am happy to have the work and remain employed.  My current position is also providing me with new challenges and new skill sets, which is good for me.  Still, I was 24,000 words into a novel when my work amplified, and I am afraid of losing connectivity because I have been away from the novel for so long. 

What do I mean by connectivity?  There is an ebb and flow to all stories, whether they are 100 words long or 100,000 words long.  But I find that when I have gaps between writing, the story loses its ebb and flow.  The storyline comes across as disjointed.  In a short story, sometimes this can be worked out.  I'm not so sure for a novel.  the only novel-length work I have written had huge connectivity issues, which is why I never tried to sell it.

I have another problem when I don't write, one that makes me wonder if writing is a condition I endure rather than any kind of gift or talent.  If I don't write, I start getting these wicked, relentless dreams that are very real and very detailed.  I wouldn't call them nightmares, though some can be.  But each dream can feel like a dream of its own.  These dreams can be very tiresome and troubling.  It is like all my writing gets dammed up in my head and there is no outlet, so the walls in the dam begin to crack.  That is why I often call writing "exorcising my demons."  By writing, I don't have these weird dreams to deal with.  I also don't have a constant influx of ideas driving through my head.

For these reasons, I sometimes wonder if my writing is a condition rather than a gift.  I have been writing for almost ten years, but I have never published any place of major significance.  I couldn't live off my writing.  I certainly could not support my family.  So it is hard to see my writing as a "gift."  But I couldn't stop writing, either.  I often say I write because I have to.  If I have to write, maybe writing is a condition, like my gout.  With my gout, I have to take a pill of allopurinol every day to help me digest food.  If I don't take the pill, my gout flares up and I suffer great pain.  Is writing the same?  Is it something I have to do daily to keep away the dreams, the "demons?"  Is writing not a gift then, but a means to remain a sane, rational person? 

The Bible admonishes against burying or neglecting your talents and says you should use them. That is one of the things (along with family support) that has kept me going as a writer. It is why I keep submitting stories, why I developed douggoodman, net, why I keep writing.  But maybe I need to look for a different explanation.  Look to see what the Bible says about managing addictions and conditions.

As a writer, you think that the end result of writing is the sharing of your talent - your work - with the world.  Either you will publish something that wins a prize or it is read in a popular magazine or you write a book that lots of people read.  But maybe the be all, end all of writing is keeping the demons away.  And is there anything wrong with that?