This morning I heard that October 5 is the most common of birthdays. It made me feel warm and fuzzy since it would have been my maternal Grandmother's 108th birthday. She brought opera and books to my attention and was known for her skills as a raconteur, a Spanish-speaking Scheherazade. But we shared other similarities besides music, reading and writing. My birthday follows hers by two weeks and as Libras we both have a deep love of spirituality and quest for the unknown, insight into the psychology of human desire, are slightly eccentric, revere nature, have a need for beauty and harmony in our environment, ( or we can't function) were/are sociable creatures, can work long hours (independently) and dislike being told what to do. The list goes on. Naming our attributes made me think we shared obsessions and were/are smitten with books and with writing.
In the novel, Old School by Tobias Wolff, the narrator in particular is obsessed. The narrator sees writing as a passport out of what he sees as the mediocrity that he's been born into. He knows he can't belong to the class that the people around him belong to, so writing is a way of transcending class altogether. This adds fire to his obsession.
I have noticed in my writing life I experience frustration when other things take me away from my writing. A ringing telephone, loud noises, lunch, a trip to the bank or post office is an interruption that leaves me ansy to return to my desk. My dream world is filled with revisions and edits over material I've written for the day.
Has writing become an obsession for you? Is writing the only thing you can think about? Do you continually dissect dialogue when having a conversation with family, friends, or co- workers? Do you use daily events to churn into a story? Do you think about sentence structure, punctuation, and grammar before speaking during a conversation? Does a new idea for a story take over your thought processes once it has been planted there?
As I see it, obsessing over writing is a blessing. It's a gift to use. Passion produces obsession if you let writing guide you and take over. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFypui1xKlk
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