Alone in a Crowd: Inside the Mind of a Writer

Being a writer generally feels a bit… surreal.

Writers tend to fluctuate between two planes of reality: The one in their heads, and the one in the waking world. The writer is often fully buried in his or her mental world, but rarely completely inhabits the waking world. The writer can also often be found somewhere in between, wandering in one direction or the other along the fantasy/reality spectrum.

What I do notice – at least with myself – is that my need to dwell my mental world often creates conflicts with the waking world. If I spend too much time in one or the other, it causes me a fair amount of stress. If I linger too long in my head, wallowing in my thoughts and fantasies, I begin to feel like I’m losing my grip on the real world. Then, like a drowning person, I feel a…