The Urge

Writing. Stories. Characters. Thoughts. Words. The Urge. You can feel it seething inside. Where does it come from? Is it primordial? Instinctive or intuitive? It’s almost like a reflex or a drug. The more you do it the more you want to do it and you can’t stop! As long as you’re writing something down, the beast is tamed.

I used to have a very romanticised view of writing when I was growing up. Maybe it was from the movies I watched that had writers in, or the many books I read or the documentaries about authors that I was enthralled with as a teenager. I had this image that to write was like taking blood from a stone. Writers were all ‘woe is me’ and ‘oh I’m a slave to my work’. Like the wounded artist but in literacy form. The type of person that if someone didn’t like their work they would cast them off as being brutish and uncouth, whilst retreating to the corner, brooding and lamenting as to why they had been given this cursed gift! Romantic, albeit dramatic.

Thankfully I am not that type of writer. Yes I love writing, it is my passion but I cannot say where it stems from. It’s as if I have always told stories, first verbally as a child to my little sister and cousins and then when the time came, when I was able, I would write them down.

I used to love the simple motion of pen on paper. Sometimes, when I was younger, I would grab my favourite book and open it to the first page and start writing word for word, copying it down just to soothe the insatiable urge of writing. You see I didn’t always have ideas or sometimes too many ideas in my head to write on my own, but this somehow muted the urgency and it was a favourite past time.

Fast forward to adulthood and I’m at a time in my life where I feel I want to write daily. I never thought that would happen for me. I used to be so in awe, jealous even, of writers who could write on demand. I’ve learnt over the years though that it takes practice to be able to do that. Like anything, the more you do it, not only the better at it you get, but your passion for it grows stronger and you find yourself wanting to do it wherever and whenever.

It’s always funny when you’re in the presence of a non-writer and they look at you, pausing in the conversation to write something frantically down so you don’t forget that piece of dialogue or miss that red herring you’ve been working on for weeks. The amount of times at work and socially I’ve had to pull my iPhone out and write things down in the notes app. In fact, I’m writing this in there now whilst I’m at the hairdressers.

I think everyone has been blessed with a creative talent. I’ve based this on the fact that everyone I’ve ever met has had either an open or hidden creative outlet that they are good at and have that ‘urge’ to do. Writing, singing, dancing, drawing, painting, sculpting, acting…whatever it is for you, keep doing it.

I believe we have these gifts for a reason and engaging in them makes our souls and our hearts happy. It gives us freedoms and a release from the world that nothing else quite gives us. It’s a blessing and a joy and I imagine as we partake in these pursuits, it connects us to the place beyond the mind, the creative consciousness that we all have access to, where we can grab a hold of an idea and bring it back to reality to mould into something of our own.

Go forth and create my friends…and then do it again, and again and again.