Kicking off...

Writing is by nature a solitary pursuit, but as I've been very belatedly in my writing life going to workshops, I've realized the value of having a community to discuss writing with. I'm going through a lot of learning and trying to become a better, hopefully published writer, and I hope other people will not only be interested in hearing about those steps, but exchanging ideas about them. I'll use this space to talk about ideas I have about writing, and other ideas that peripherally relate to it.

The first one is about the title of the blog. A fellow writer read me a quote about writing being an affliction, and it really feels like that sometimes to me. If I go more than a few days without working on some story or another, I get restless and annoyed. I hear that for a writer, this is a good thing--at least, it is a sign that you're on the right path in attempting to forge a career as a writer. The only time it really feels like an affliction to me is when I have the urge to write without any projects to be working on, which is a rare circumstance and I try not to let it happen.

I know a lot of people who write, but don't seem to have that obsessive need to be writing constantly. Can you cultivate it? I wasn't always this way, so perhaps it's an acquired affliction, like an addiction rather than a condition. However it happened, I'm addicted to writing now.