Writing Is Insanity

What is writing? If I've learned anything over the years, it's that writing is a lifestyle. It captures one up and keeps them caught up in the excitement of spinning stories and weaving words. The act of writing starts an addiction that does not go away. Writers often describe hearing voices in their head or seeing stories play out in their mind like a movie. Last I checked, addiction and seeing and hearing things were all perfectly good reasons to be labeled insane and locked away. Yet writers are accepted in society as perfectly sane. (Little does society know that we're crazier than we seem.) As we continue our writing, we get more hooked into the story than our readers. We know the loves and fears of our characters, but we can't let them go. We cling onto our fictional creations like a child to their imaginary friend. In a way, characters are just like the imaginary friend. We can see them in the mind's eye, and hear them as well and no one else gets them quite like we do.
It gets worse though. As if being addicted weren't enough, writing starts to totally take over life. We progress through the day thinking about plot lines and protagonists. The student scribbles under the desk and the employee taps notes into a phone, when the teacher/boss isn't looking of course. Soon, nights are spent in bed with a laptop or notebook. Upon awakening, the writer finds the imprint of a keyboard in her cheeks or a notebook spine pressed into her forehead. Every waking moment is spent multitasking because the thoughts of stories never leaves the min, yet the day must go on and life must continue. Duties and obligations prevent writing from happening as much as we want, but we never forget it.
Guilt builds though, when we don't write as much as we need to, because it is a need. It is all that keeps us from gaining a level of craziness that even society deems is too much. Yet writing brings in just as much guilt. Time spent writing is time spent not getting other things done, such as chores, work, or school. Every word is a debate, every sentence a battle, as the brain argues over whether time is better spent writing or doing what needs to be done.
Writing is a dualistic in its qualities though. It prevents insanity yet it is insanity. To continue writing and expect something other than the addiction that results, is insanity by definition. However, stopping would lead to the bottling up of ideas and emotions, something that any psychologist would agree leads to insanity. The idea of stopping, is something most writers cannot even fathom. I know I could never stop. Even without the means to write, I would continue to construct characters and plot points in my head. Stopping is nearly impossible, once it's begun.
So I share this meme with you. (I only recently saw LoTR, so I only recently understand the reference.) I think it sums this post up nicely. :)