Chronic Hope Junkies With Schitzophrenia

Writers are crazy.

What you really mean when you tell someone that you're a writer: Hi! I am a self-absorbed, chronic hope junkie with passive-aggressive attention issues and schizophrenia. 

We say that we're writing for us and that we don't care what other people think.

The first part is kind of true. It is a sort of therapy. I mean, how else can a person cope with having multiple characters talking inside our heads in multiple story-lines other than getting them out on paper and expanding them to make cohesive sense of the insanity? 

However, the second part is a complete and total lie. We are neurotically desperate for anyone who reads our work to like what we've come up with. We live and breathe on that hope.

Every time we publish something we become Sally Field at her most embarrassing public moment. Because, in our heads, we've realized glory, fortune and the sort of fame that still allows us to go to the grocery store, even though we could totally send someone else if we wanted to.

We have as much of a chance of realizing that reality from our writing as we do of hitting the lottery.

Our interpersonal relationships usually suffer because we're better at communicating on paper; and you have to seclude yourself to write. But we love company. But we can't stand being in public. But we need other people to bounce ideas off of. But we're extremely emotional and too much companionship hinders us.

We're subject to random sparks of inspiration... All. The. Time.

There is no such thing as a normal conversation with a writer. We jump track and go boldly where no man, woman, or child has gone before; and sometimes, there's a good reason why no one has. Because we're crazy.

In our heads, we're re-writing what you're saying and collecting your features and mannerisms to incorporate into our characters. We're expanding on your story line. 

You tell us that you went to the gas station, bought gas and cigarettes and drove back to the house. 

In our heads there was a robbery, a car crash, a turf war and a love story with pyrotechnics. It all plays out on our mental screen as we sit with a plastered-on-smile and a dim far-away look in our eyes 

We can't help it. It's an addiction that lives in us and has been there since we were as itty as a bitty gets. I've been writing since first grade. Even when I walk away from writing and live my life, I always come back to it...because the addiction calls me. 

I can't imagine what Stephen King's elementary teacher had to go through reading his creative writing assignments. She probably called his parents in for a conference concerning his mental state and what was considered appropriate material for a school essay...right after she peed her pants.

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