Are You Addicted to Writing?
By: Zita Fontaine
Tags: Writing, Mental Health, Productivity, Self, Creativity

Are You Addicted to Writing?

Can something good turn into something bad?

Photo by Nine Köpfer on Unsplash

“There are all kinds of addicts, I guess. We all have pain. And we all look for ways to make the pain go away.”― Sherman Alexie

These past few months, writing finally took its well-deserved place in my life. I started to write, and I started to write a lot.

It’s the best thing that could have happened to me. It’s bringing out my ignored and neglected creative part, it heals me, it helps me process. It’s calming, soothing, and more often than not, it puts me in a flow state, where I forget about the world, about my hunger, my thirst, my fatigue. I only exist in the tiny universe I’m creating with my words. It’s beautiful, it’s satisfying, it’s my go-to drug.

On the other hand, it’s stressful, it’s very intense, it’s taxing — mentally and emotionally. It lures some monsters out of the dark — fears and phobias, self-deprecation, imposter syndrome. And as opposed to the blissful flow state, I’m sometimes faced with writer’s block, stuck somewhere between my thoughts and the keyboard, struggling, drowning, dying.

It’s one of the most intense things I’ve ever done. It’s way more than a hobby. It’s a job, a vocation, a lifeline. It’s everything.

The best thing is that when I’m writing, I’m me. And the worst thing is that when I’m writing, I’m me.

I am who I am, I can’t change it. I’m tackling writing with the same passion (and then some) as everything else I care about in life. I’m an overachiever, an overthinker, an overdoer.

When I started to write this time, there was one huge difference compared to any other time in my life when I was writing. This time, I started to publish. Wow! Huge, huge, huge difference. Writing for an audience, especially on a platform like this, is a gamechanger.

I don’t only want to be read — I’m totally hooked on the gamification features and the vanity metrics. I’m a Leo, I’m only human, I’m a creative person, I’m vain. Claps and views and ratios, comments and highlights, badges… and curation. It starts small, and if you’re doing a good enough job, it gets gradually better, it slowly creeps up. And there’s more, always more. There’s always another milestone, another badge, another beautifully written response that makes my story just a little better.

And there’s the community, there are my new friends, my idols, my writer crushes. And this community of writers and readers adds another aspect to the gamification. The personal touch, the feeling of being loved and appreciated, uplifted and cherished.

To know that you helped someone in their own struggle just by writing about your experience? Priceless.

The feeling of being called someone’s favourite writer? Incredible.

To know that your story resonated with someone and changed how they think? That’s my kind of heaven.

And I’m addicted to it all. I’m high on words and I’m starting to experience the side-effects.

When I say there’s always more, it also means that it’s not just the feedback that grows exponentially. I have a thousand ideas, a million articles on my mind. I want to write a book, no make it two, actually, you know what, 10, and all of them bestsellers. I want to try another topic, another genre — and another one, and another one.

And I’m clearly showing the symptoms of addiction.