Friday, August 3, 2012

Meet Chris Redding

Most writers will tell you that they can’t not write. I know. Double negative. But it’s true. We can’t just stop writing.

My husband has been a pilot for years. He doesn’t do it as a job, but as a hobby. He’s been flying airplanes longer than he’s been driving a car. He cleaned bathrooms at an airport in exchange for lessons. He once thought he’d never get to fly again. In some ways it was the end of the world for him.

I told him that is how I would feel if I never got to write again.

Writing is as much a part of me as breathing.  Though I think about writing more than I do about breathing.

I don’t know about how others feel. I can’t speak to that. After I write I feel as if I’m cranking on endorphins. I’ve been a runner in the distant past. I swam for exercise and still walk, but none of those activities give me the same high as writing.

That probably sounds odd. Oh well. It’s the reality of my existence. Maybe I’m a writing junkie. Always looking for that next fix. How illicit I have now made my writing.

When I don’t write for more than a few days, my head gets odd. The stories must be written down. If I don’t, then I begin to bump into walls. I unload the dishwasher and put things in the wrong places. I even lose sleep, which to me is worse than not eating. And I love to eat.

Writing is also a large part of my identity. Those rare times that I have thought about quitting, I could not imagine what I would fill that part of my life with if I did. I think I would have eventually come back to writing.

4 comments:

  1. You and I are on the same page, Chris. When I can't write, something in my head goes wonky.

    Of course, I also have a few issues about writing what I'm supposed to be writing at a given time.

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  2. You put it so well, Chris. There is a huge satisfaction that comes from putting words together well. And then the secondary satisfaction from delighting other people.

    I hear there are people out there who don't write fiction and I wonder how they keep sane :)

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  3. Thanks, Chris, that's how I feel, too, when I say I'm working I don't mean writing although it's more work than my work, if that makes sense.

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