Writing Mania’s Grip

I’m in the midst of writing mania these days.

It’s glorious.

It’s exhausting.

It’s numbing.

It’s an adrenaline high and I’ll be happy when it’s done.

What is writing mania?

Let me describe Saturday to you.

I’ve been trapped in a wild writing cycle all week long–waking early, writing for several hours, then living a “normal” day, which included writing all afternoon.

My body was giving out–mostly my eyes–by 8:15 every night, so I went to bed. My husband had a good book, so no worries.

Friday was the same. Exhausted by 8, I crawled into bed. I was so tired, I could only read five pages of the terrific The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, and then I was asleep.

I woke at 2:15.

I’d hoped for something more reasonable, say, 5:15, to catch up on the week.

But the cat was on to me at 2:15, yowling and demanding food. I ignored her and tried to fall asleep again.

Little lines from the story plagued me.

I decided to pray instead.

The cat stalked all over me.

My husband slept soundly.

At 3:45 I gave up and got up.

I had something warm to drink.

Checked my email, social media, said hello to a friend in Papua New Guinea–talking on the same day for once–and had my morning devotions.

I didn’t feed the cat until the customary 5:30.

Wide awake, I went to my office upstairs.

As customary, I’d left the biography I’m writing in an easy place to dip back into.

But I’d no sooner opened it when I got an idea for a blog post.

I wrote the blog post, including photos, tweets, and all the other items necessary to make a blog post work.

Then, to my surprise, another blog post idea came up.

I wrote it.

By then, I was ready to get into my book.

I really needed to finish chapter five that weekend.

Biography writing is very time-consuming. I have to check, recheck, and reexamine everything and I like to do it as I write.

An hour or so into that, another blog idea struck.

I wrote another blog post.

Then I ate breakfast, tossed in the laundry, cleaned the kitchen, kissed my husband, let the cat in and out, and drank a cup of coffee.

Back to the book.

I could only write until 11 o’clock if I wanted to get a walk in before a memorial service and then a movie date (4 o’clock showing, we knew I’d never last any longer).

Several glasses of water, a plot discussion with my husband, ANOTHER blog idea (made note of it, no writing), and returned to the last four pages of chapter five.

I finished it all at 10:50.

Dazed, astounded, so very thankful, I bounded down the stairs, kissed my husband, turned on the printer, moved the laundry, let the cat in and out, then got dressed!

My husband read the chapter.

He loved it!

By 11:15, we were out for a walk.

I turned off the computer when I got home. No matter what siren called from the keyboard and screen, I was done for the day.

I’ve had writing mania before.

While finishing my WWI novel, I knew exactly how it ended and I wrote the final 25,000 words in five days.

It’s a glorious feeling–the words poured and I could scarcely type fast enough ( I type 125 words a minute).

All the cylinders were firing and I lost track of time completely, shocked when 12 hours had passed.

When I came down off the writing mania and read through my work with critical eyes a week later, I cried.

I wept over the ending of that book–because the writing was good, yes, but also because I couldn’t believe the intensity of the ideas and that I wrote it.

Truly a marvelous, wonderful, awe-full, incredible feeling.

I’ve got 10 chapters to go on this biography–about 30,000 words.

I can hardly wait.

Though, I’d really prefer to live like a normal person, living manageable hours.

LOL.

Tweetables

Writing mania–what it looks like in real life. Click to Tweet

Living with writing mania. Click to Tweet

Writing mania–read it and weep. Click to Tweet

(Note: this is my first day back at the keyboard after Saturday. I wrote this post–which struck me before I got out of bed–in 20 minutes. The throes of writing mania may be back–but I’m going to the gym first.)