Why Writers Need Psychiatrists

As a writer, it can sometimes seem impossible to find time to write. When time is found, motivation is often lacking. When motivation and time are found, the phone tends to ring and there are people on the other line who chose that particular moment to tell you something you already knew or really didn't want to know in the first place. And if you tell them you're writing, they tend to say, "Oh, that's wonderful! What are you writing about?" or ignore you completely and continue on with their (obviously) more important story.

So how does a writer accomplish anything, ever, and not pull out his or her hair in frustration? Well, Stephen King is famous for saying that writer's write. Writer's don't necessarily get paid. They don't always get to go on TV or on book tours or sell movie rights or even get published. But they write. And any writer who writes can tell you that there is nothing like it in the world. Everything melts away when a writer is writing, and this is why we seem so incredibly cranky when we are interrupted from our writing. It's why we're so frustrated when writer's block strikes. Writing is not just our hobby, it's not even a drug. Writing is the reason we exist, and it is the closest one can become to understanding what it must feel like to be God.

We write because we must, for if we do not we end up unfulfilled and bitter, all the creations inside our brains warring and trampling and doing God knows what else in an effort to break free of our minds and share them with the world. Yet we fear that even when we get them onto paper that they will never be shared, or if shared they will be ridiculed and despised. We do not believe the praises of friends and family because they are our friends and family and are supposed to tell us that our writing is "wonderful". Being a writer is, I imagine, akin to being a paranoid schizophrenic with delusions of grandeur and an inferiority complex.

But please, whatever you do, don't stop giving us praises. We need them, for besides writing your praises are our life's blood. And please, whatever else you do, give us honest criticism as well. We need it as well, even if we kick and scream and hate you and make voodoo dolls of you to stick railroad spikes through or, as the shirt says, "you'll end up in my novel".

And please, for the love of God, support us.

I love you all, my family, friends, and fans.

Sam