Writing is What Gave Me Hope When I Was About to Lose All Hope

 

Photo Credit: fotografierende via Pixabay

 

The year was 2020 and it was not only a bad year for the entire world that was dealing with a pandemic, but it was also a bad year for me. After months of dealing with constantly changing protocols at a job that required I wear a mask for several hours, I resigned. I didn’t want to quit this job, but because I had been written up too many times, I was faced with the choice to either quit or lose a substantial amount of money earned through PTO. So I quit that job in order to at least walk away with some money in my pocket to help tide us over until something else came along.

 

Still, I was very depressed, as I had created an entire identity around that job. I loved the work, so it was hard to walk away from it after almost three years. But it was time for a change.

 

And that change was writing.

 

I did manage to get another job shortly after I resigned from being a Direct Support Professional (DSP), but I was let go from it three months later.

 

The thing that was still a constant in my life even after I lost the other job? Writing.

 

Up until I started writing again in late 2020, I had been dealing with a dry spell. This occurred during my recovery from alcoholism-induced pancreatitis, which happened in 2017. For some reason, I was unable to write! As worrying and alarming as this was for me, I didn’t realize at the time that my body was going through a transformation. After years of being a heavy drinker, I was no longer drinking. I was no longer an alcoholic. And this shift took my body by surprise. This shift meant that I needed to go through a reset and allow my body, as well as my brain, to heal from those years of addiction.

 

I had to wait until I was able to write again in order to resume writing again. Writing did come back into my life, in its own time. At the right time. At a time that I needed it the most.

 

While I was going through that dry spell, though, I focused my energy on finding satisfaction through other means. I read books, threw myself into my job, and got out there to explore. These things brought me satisfaction. They brought me joy.

 

But once the BIGGEST thing that brought me joy was gone, I hit rock bottom. I was extremely depressed. And because I kept hearing about more people dying from Covid as well as more people losing their jobs and more people struggling through the pandemic, I started to lose hope.

 

Then writing came back into my life. It brought me the joy that I lost. Even better, it brought back hope. Being able to write again was something of a miracle for me, and it brought some hope back into my life.

 

And nearly six years later, I am still writing. (I am also still sober!)

 

Having witnessed how writing can change a person’s life and boost their mental health is what inspired me to write the book Write for Your Life!: The Health Benefits of Writing. While doing research for this book, I learned about how writing can improve our mental health. As someone who has chronic depression, anxiety, and panic disorder, I have also personally experienced how writing has indeed helped my mental health. Writing provides me with a strong sense of satisfaction, release, empowerment, and therapy. I keep a daily journal, and I gotta say that being able to rant and whine on the pages has been immensely helpful. (Sometimes I’ll rant to my husband, but only after he insists that I share what is bothering me. I really don’t like dumping things on people.)  

 

While I understand that not everyone can benefit from writing, it still remains a powerful tool in coping with the downsides of life, as well as offering healing when mental health issues get out of hand.

 

Writing is the one thing we have control over.

 

Writing is the one thing we can choose to do in our own time.

 

Writing is the one thing that we can rely on as a constant in our lives.

 

The best part about writing? Anyone can do it. You don’t need to write for publication. You don’t need any special tools to write with (you can write with pen and paper or even on your phone). You don’t need to have any special training in order to write. You can write, in your own way and in your own time.

 

So, write. It will offer you the joy you might be missing. It can bring some hope back into your life. I know that it did for me, and it still does.

Wasteful Writing?

This week found me busy revising two things: A novelette and a short story. The short story ended up taking all week for me to revise, because it ended up being a lot longer than the first draft. It also ended up being something entirely different than the first draft! Part of the revision process was to do research on my story’s main symbol, which is a tree. My research helped me to “flesh out” the story and have everything happening with that tree make sense.

 

The novelette I revised also ended up being a lot longer than its first draft. There were times during the revision process when I couldn’t figure things out. When this happens, I usually step away from the writing and do other things while I try to figure that out. In this case, I went on a drive with my son. At one stop, I was suddenly inspired, so I whipped out my phone and started writing in the Notes app. After we got home, I transferred what I wrote to the story file, but I noticed that what I’d written could be better. I fixed it up and was satisfied with it enough to move on.

 

In both cases, I started to wonder: Was the time I spent writing those first drafts wasted? And did I waste my efforts in writing something that ended up being terrible?

 

In both cases, I believe the answer is no.

 

If you want to write something, you have to start somewhere – even if it’s a first draft that will ultimately never see the light of day. (How many first drafts actually get published?) Also, it’s important to write anything you feel could be USEFUL to your WIP, even if you feel the writing sucks.

 

The point is to write. Plant the seeds of your idea by getting it down onto paper, then “water” it by revising it so that it can grow into something wonderful. Something you can be proud of.

 

Even if you don’t use something you wrote in your final draft, it’s still something that helped you to keep your focus on the work at hand and stay connected to your writing process. Any writing is better than no writing at all, and it is definitely not a waste of time if you manage to get the words onto the page instead of keeping them in your head.

 

And while I’m on the subject of writing, here is a quote from the August 23, 2024 issue of C. Hope Clark’s newsletter, FundsforWriters: “As writers, we are an endless supply of words. Each line we write improves us. And the more we have to practice at our craft, the better we get.”

 

New Book Explores Just How Healthy a Writing Habit Can Be

 

In the year 2020, sometime after the pandemic hit, I was at the end of my rope. In addition to coping with so many people I knew and loved either getting COVID-19 or passing away from it, I lost my job and things seemed to only get worse as the months went by. I started to lose hope. I dreaded waking up the next day to learn about what new disaster had struck. I was and still am a recovering alcoholic, but I was tempted to start drinking again. (Thankfully, I resisted!) I felt useless, powerless and helpless. The future began to look very bleak – if there was going to be a future at all.

 

Then something wonderful happened.

 

After over two years of being unable to write, the day came when I picked up a pen, grabbed a notebook, and started writing again. Writing was the one thing I knew I could rely on, and it ended up being the only thing which, at that time, brought joy into my life again.

 

Writing made me happy. As page after page of that notebook started to fill up with words, I started to feel better about myself – and the possibility of an actual future. While the world was ending, I tried to keep it all going for just one more day by writing.

 

Not only did writing allow me to pick myself up off the floor, but, later on in life, it also helped me come to terms with certain traumas from my past. I was reading a book which shared information about keeping a “trauma journal.” Apparently, this kind of journal helped A LOT of people who survived trauma, just from writing all about it. I was intrigued and wanted to learn more about just how writing could provide other kind of health and emotional benefits to people.

 

I threw myself into researching this topic. The result was my new ebook, Write for Your Life! The Health Benefits of Writing.

 

In my research, I discovered the psychological, emotional and spiritual benefits many people have reaped from writing, either by using guided writing in therapy, random writing sessions with freewriting, timed writing sessions or normal writing activities. Not only this, but writing itself allowed many people facing disease and illness eventually regain their health and improve their sense of wellness. Their blood pressure went down, cholesterol levels dropped and cognitive skills improved. Writing soon became a passion for these individuals, and the more they wrote, the better they felt and the better their health improved.

 

Writing that book was definitely an eye-opener. I never knew the health benefits of writing! However, as someone who was able to write again only when my world seemed to be falling apart, and being better off for it, I can see and understand how writing can have a positive impact on someone’s life. I am so glad I followed my curiosity and researched this topic. I am also glad I was able to write a short book about it! This book may not be an exhaustive discussion on the health benefits of writing, but I hope it will serve as a good introduction to people who are interested in how they can improve their health.

 

The best part? Writing is FREE.

 

Here is the book’s blurb:

 

Have you ever felt better after writing down all of those feelings you kept bottled up? Is your journal your go-to every time life gets a little too stressful? Does writing fiction allow you the opportunity to escape from the harsh realities of life?

 

There's a very good reason why you turn to these methods of writing when you have nothing else to use and no one to go to for relief: Writing can help improve your health. Studies have found that the act of writing has helped people improve their mental, physical, emotional and spiritual health. Not only this, but the habit of writing has helped improve cognitive skills and otherwise increased a person's overall intellectual health.

 

If you're looking for a low-cost method to help you cope with stress, anxiety and fear, why not turn to something that is available to you 24/7/365? Writing can help improve your overall health and it provides you with a way to boost your creativity. Write for Your Life! shares just what kind of health benefits await you just from adding the writing habit to your life.

 

Buy link 

Write About Everything

 

Anytime I come across somebody complaining about me or another writer writing about some thing or another that is based on our life, I can only chuckle and say, “That’s what writers do!”

 

Writers write about everything. Every single experience they go through in life is material for our writing. We may be inspired to document our experiences on Facebook, write a novel based on true events, or even get an article idea out of an experience.

 

In fact, I got four ideas for a novel based on one experience alone. (One of those ideas was turned into an actual novel. Check out Shadow of Samhain if you’re interested!)

 

Just as all writers are inspired to write one thing or another based on what they go through in life, so, too, should you give yourself permission to turn real-life events into stories or articles, poems or essays or even a script! Everything a writer experiences in life is material we can use in our writing, so go ahead and write all about whatever you are inspired to write about.

 

If you went through a traumatic experience in your childhood and feel compelled to write about it, then write about it. You don’t HAVE to get it published. You can, if you want to. But if it makes you too nervous, then turn it into a novel.

 

If you get an idea for something to write just from something you overheard, then write it.

 

If you are feeling angry or saddened because someone treated you wrong and you want to turn that into a story where you, the protagonist, get your revenge, go for it.

 

Write anything and everything. Your life experiences are a great place to start if you need ideas for something to write. Not only this, but when you keep a record of something you are going through in life, you can use that for a future character should they end up going through it too. This way, your experiences make it more realistic.

 

And don’t allow anyone to put you down for it or tell you that you can’t write about that. Sure you can! It’s YOUR life and YOUR experience! It’s something that you, personally, went through. You have every right to write about it.

 

On the other hand, tread this road carefully. There have been so many lawsuits about tell-all books or memoirs ratting people out or “defamation of character” based on something that was written about them. Even if it is true.

 

This is why writers who write about real-life experiences must do things like changing names or fictionalizing real-life events. That’s why I turned my experience into a novel. If it’s fiction, you won’t be sued (just make sure you change identifying features, names and genders for characters based on a real person!)

 

This applies to work you wish to get published. But if you don’t wish to pursue publication, then go ahead and write everything down on a private format such as a journal.

 

The bottom line is, writers write about everything – even the things that they are going through. Real-life experiences might inspire ideas for them to write something, or they might transform people they know into characters.

 

Just write anything you want to write. It’s your life, after all, and that makes you the best person to write about it.