The benefits of writing

Sometimes I just want to say – God I love writing.

Whenever I am able to get in a couple hours of straight writing (whether it’s blogging, journaling, writing a first draft or even revising), the fact that I’m able to get lost in my words, erase the world around me and enter a pseudo-meditative state is better than any anti-anxiety drugs out there! (Note, this can also be applied to the act of reading, of getting lost in a story.)

Then there’s the euphoria that comes with creation. Giving birth to characters and stories is, in layman’s terms, awesome. You enter a frenzied state in learning all you can about your character(s). They become real, your friends (or enemies). You know every intimate detail about them, possibly even more than your own spouse. They are your children.

And it doesn’t matter what kind of writing; each has a unique calming quality for me and though I may be writing action, that I can forget my own self and my own circumstances is reward enough. I am no longer me, but a spectator in the unfolding story. I’m right there with an invisibility cloak, walking side by side with the characters. Or, if I’m revisiting my past, even when painful, I get lost in remembering. I may cry, I may laugh – but I forget my problems of the here and now. Heck, even if I’m writing about the problems of now, writing allows me to enter a reflective state that calms me. And poetry, too. And children’s stories.

The act of writing is a spiritual experience.

And now I continue revising my essay…