Creative Writing Reflections according to Scott Dunn

Who cannot claim to have at least one minor addiction, a minor obsession or infraction they cannot give up? Whether it be alcohol, a game, a habit, a pleasure-seeking activity, sport or an illegal substance. Even gardening can be addictive, if your personality is so inclined. We do what we are interested in or are absorbed in doing. What engages us.

One writer thinks we should encourage that feeling.

He tried various things to alter his mood, but still came up empty. As, he says, when the high dissolves, you still have to face reality and that is often what is so hard for addicts. And that is where writing comes in.

“No matter how I try to alter my mood, I still have to contend with reality. When the buzz is gone, the reality is still there, waiting for me to do something about it. At the end of the day, when everything that I could possibly do in a day is done, I still have to decide to be happy. I’ll read an article that fires me up, and the next day …the urge to write has returned.”

Scott C Dunn

Can we choose to re-direct our addictions via directing our energies to creative activities vis a vis – our writing?

Writing is a good workout for my ever active mind chatter and, it also keeps me away from the fridge and pantry when I am at home. It envelopes me in an intellectual world of words, like a cosy blanket or a warm hug from my loved ones that banishes all other desires. Distracting me from any troublesome mind-niggling. Physical activity for that part of my brain.

Scott C Dunn writes:

Creation forces me to examine how I think. [When he writes, he is], adding to the world. And if I’m going to create, I create things to improve my life. If I could point to a single cause of why my life has improved, it is writing. I started with blogging. Then gratitude lists and morning pages. And when I was done with the morning page, I was fired up [to write].

I write because writing displaces my tendency towards addiction.

Maybe I’m addicted to writing. If so, there are no adverse effects that I have found. The barrier to entry is low. The cost is trivial. The benefits of writing are enormous.

Even if I just wrote one page every day, not writing anywhere else, I’d still find benefits to writing that I could not derive any other way. They say that the eyes are the window to the soul. The written word is the window to the mind. I use writing to peer into my mind, to see what is really so important to me.

To those who find themselves suffering, I encourage you to write every day, as I did. Writing can relieve suffering in ways that no pill, drink, or activity can do. Yes, there is always exercise and we can do that. But I find that writing offers a way to discern the cause of my suffering that no other mental exercise can ~Scott C Dunn

Scott talks about how many self-help manuals encourage delving behind one’s thoughts. He finds, however, that it is the act of creation itself, that his mind is opened further. He will write until he is spent and the words flow no more. Then and only then, does he edit his creation.

Summing up he says:

Writing is mental floss for the mind. I floss every day to remind myself why I am still here. To discover what truly makes me happy.” Scott C Dunn

I am beginning to ask myself why I did not write more when younger. Why not make it a career as it seems it is becoming now?

Are you a writer who finds putting pen to paper therapeutic?

Did you long for a career in writing?

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