I used to be a fun fucking extrovert. Know what happened?
I became an author.
I became an author that wants to sprint write because I’ve become addicted to writing. I have so many story ideas, I can’t get them out fast enough. It’s frustrating as all fuck. It’s like I kept stories in my head for 20 years, someone opened the barn door, and I’m the bull that’s decided I’m going to get me some cow pussy.
My only steady night out during the week is when I go to writing club, and that doesn’t help much since my writing club is called Shut Up and Write. Sometimes, that feels like a level of irony that only Alanis could fully appreciate.
Yes, I’m a chatty Cathy and have a really hard time shutting the fuck up and writing. I get around other writers, and it’s like verbal diarrhea comes out of me. I want to show them the covers I fuck around with in Canva. I want to show them reviews I think are funny. I want to talk to them about THEIR books. My writing club usually looks over their glasses and says something kind like…
I go out to have a beer with the neighbors at a fire pit or to the pool during the summer. But that’s not happening in the dead winter of the Midwest right now, especially since COVID has dampened the ability to reserve a party bus for me and my 20 closest. Hell, I’m supposed to go to Florida for spring break, and I should be looking forward to that. I have zero motivation to even think about leaving my house for a week. That is precious writing time.
Which is a bad thing. The more I’m alone, the more I want to be alone.
So I started doing some research on this. There’s plenty of articles out there that talk about writers getting to the point that they write constantly, even in the middle of the night. (I’m not there yet. I still like my sleep.) But there are plenty of instances where writers get sucked into the black hole of telling stories and don’t leave the house, telling people to go die in a hole if they dare try to get them to leave the laptop. (Articles below.)
When I say I want to get it done, I mean I’m obsessed. The new series is 8 books, and I want all 8 of them done RIGHT FUCKING NOW. Logically, I know I’m going to write these for the next two years, but come on. I have the covers done and outlines done. Let me stay at home, eat nothing but Swiss Cake Rolls and type. I push out erotica shorts on my pen name every week or two and still need to finish JCH 4. (I’m working on it. I promise.) I also have 3 standalones in my brain rattling around. Basically, I’m packed until 2025 for writing. My problem is that I want them all done by next Tuesday.
Is there some methadone-type intervention for writing addiction?
Even more interesting is the fact that I’m just realizing now that I may have a problem. I’m an extrovert. I’m one of those people that adopts introverts and drags them out on the town. COVID lockdown killed me, but I also think it conditioned me and helped turn me into the hermit I’ve become. Things are going to be canceled. Why go? I’ve become the Pavlov’s dog equivalent of Walden. (If Walden had to be begged by his oldest child to put on real pants to take her to the new Scream movie.)
My husband of 13 years has always been a homebody, and I scheduled every time that man left the house for the first 10 years. Words he’s said frequently to me include, “Where are we going again?” (on the way to the airport) and “Do I have to wear a shirt with sleeves?” Now, he asks me if I want to go out to eat with hope in his voice.
Nah. Let’s order Panera for delivery again.
Remember how I said that I’m the extrovert friend that adopts the introverts? Yeah. All my friends are introverts and that’s no fucking help! They aren’t going to pound on my door holding a jar of questionable hooch and demand we find a ladies night of Chippendale dancers. They’re probably confused as to why I haven’t knocked on their doors lately. But they’re introverts, so they don’t dwell on much while they scroll through their HBO Max list.
Contributing to this even more is the fact that I quit my full time job last spring after my shoulder pain became unbearable and I realized how little I was paid to take a punch or have a desk thrown at me. Incidentally, middle-aged women with backgrounds in SPED are fantastic dogdeball team partners.
I now have a job I don’t have to go to unless I want to go. If I don’t want to go, I don’t fucking go. And, yes, I am enjoying my Christmas break. Thanks so much for asking in mid-January.
So I’ve made a pledge to get out one other time during the week and take one job a week from now until March. My own brand of writing methadone, if you will. If you see me languishing on Instagram and posting too often or see 10 books coming out for preorder in the next month, call me on it. Someone needs to rescue me from myself and these Swiss Cake Rolls.
If you’re a writer and have experienced anything close to this, drop a comment.
Author Tori Ross (The Smutty Book Lady) 