Tag: Writing

Mentally ill? I think not!

It is commonly accepted that there are a disproportionate number of introverts among writers. Writing is, fundamentally, a solitary pursuit. Even when books are co-written the authors often correspond mostly online.

There is also a belief among some mental health ‘experts’, based on faulty science, that introverts comprise a small minority of the general population. A touted personality test, called The Big Five system, suggests that introversion is an aberration, that we are, (depending on the ‘degree of introversion’), essentially abnormal. It places everyone on a sliding scale, with extroversion as ‘positive’ and introversion as ‘lack of extroversion, as somehow ‘less’ and therefore negative. They posit that introversion is maladaptive and needs to be moderated or treated if we want to be ‘normal’ and happy. Depending on the “degree” measured by this test, this has even led to introversion being labeled as a mental illness. Continue reading “Mentally ill? I think not!”

Playing in the Sand—Or how I Became an Author in one Therapy Session

Guest post
by Stefan Bolz

It all began when my colleague told me about her friend who had computer problems. I have been writing for a while, mostly poetry, a few screenplays and the beginnings of a novel when I was seventeen.

But I never considered myself a writer and I never—never—could have dreamed up what that incidental encounter had in store for me. It all started with a faulty wireless connection and a new printer.

I seem to have good computer karma and my colleague at work thought I could make some extra money by setting up her friend’s, computer with her printer at her home. When I got to her house, she asked me very nonchalantly about the date and time of my birth. As I found out, she is an excellent Astrologer. I gave it to her and, for the next hour or so, she told me all about where my sun is and which house I was born in and the whole problem with Gemini. Continue reading “Playing in the Sand—Or how I Became an Author in one Therapy Session”

Words, Wonderful Words

Guest post
by Jo at Inknbeans Press

I read a lot of words. I read submissions from strangers which, in some ways, are the best kind because I’m not pre-disposed to love them simply because I know and love the author. I also read every word every one of our Beans* present to us because that’s our arrangement – they write, I read.

When I was much younger, I played in a community orchestra. I won’t tell you what instrument I played. It is sufficient to say that my greatest contribution to music is that I am an avid fan, however they needed someone to fill that second chair and I could hold the instrument without looking like a fool, so there I was. There was a young woman who, by some cruel jerk of the strings of nepotism, was frequently invited to sing with us. She was quite confident of her operatic vocal skills, though equally proud of her untrained status. In short, she would have been excellent at Coldstone, singing a few bars of some thank-you song when someone left a tip, and not much else. In much shorter, she stank. Continue reading “Words, Wonderful Words”

What is a writer?

Just this morning, a blogger friend asked an interesting question – are all bloggers writers just because they write [something]?

I side-stepped the heart of the question by talking about how my blogging had improved my writing generally, but I’m not really satisfied with that answer. It was a cop-out, so I thought I’d throw the question out to all the minions – what is a writer?

Clearly, a writer has to write, but does a writer have to publish? I’ve been writing fiction for almost thirteen years, but for eleven of those years I never let anyone see what I was writing, and I certainly didn’t publish anything. Was I a writer during that decade and a bit? I know I didn’t feel like a writer, and I didn’t call myself one either. Continue reading “What is a writer?”