compulsions

Sundog Rising!

Reflections on living the life literary by the Urban Sundog

Positively Compelled

With great reluctance, I recently had to make a lifestyle choice.

I decided working on 4 novels a day caused me anxiety. So I’m going to have to settle for only 3 a day from now on.

So what is this compulsion to write I experience? I won’t say I suffer from it, because quite frankly, outside of the anxiety of trying to balance 4 plots in my head at once, I enjoy it.

The clinical term is hypergraphia. That’s Latin for “compulsion to write”. Not entirely illuminating, but it’s always nice to have a fancy name for your odder mental processes. 

The condition at its most extreme can be quite debilitating. Those who actually do suffer from it are compelled to write everything that goes through their heads, regardless of trying to organize those thoughts to tell a story or create a novel or whatever. Fortunately, in my case, my hypergraphia is nicely balanced by my other condition — hyperlexia. The compulsion to read. I don’t know if the fact that I spend practically every moment I can when I’m not writing reading has helped to focus my hypergraphia or not. Maybe after all my reading I just think the world should operate like a good novel, so I am compelled to write down my observations of it as if it does.

I think it’s a good mix. I admit I am perhaps an extreme example of both conditions. Trying to turn out at least three full novels a year and reading at least 100 plus books a year at the same time. It’s a good thing I like to cook too, and insist on getting out to the gym twice a week. Because when I’m speed-walking around the track I like to plot what I’m going to write next when I get home, and then —

Ahem. It’s a good thing I like to cook too.

I don’t feel this balance of compulsions in my life is a bad thing. In fact, I’ve been healthier in body and mind these last few years when I’ve been able to indulge my compulsions than I was for the first 35 years of my adult life. That says something.

If there is an inner compulsion I’m not admitting lying behind all this, I believe it’s a need to see the world in terms beyond the societally conventional to truly make reality come to life for me. Like any good hypergraphist, I admit everything I see and experience is fodder for writing. But more precisely in my case, fodder for story. Creatively interacting with my world, not just letting it roll over me. The same applies to my wife and her eye for photography. We’re looking at the world in different ways from most people, and that’s a good thing. Feeding our souls.

Photo by Renee Beaubien

It’s a luxury of a North American middle class existence of course, particularly as lived in Canada in my case. You don’t have these kind of options if you’re wondering where your next meal’s coming from or what new fresh hell is going to descend upon you today in a war zone.

Yet, maybe you need stories even more in those situations to make sense of your world. Stories have always been with us. It can be reassuring to know that whatever happens to you, you can write about it. Sometimes because you have to to let the rest of the world know what’s wrong with it.

And then hopefully we’ll write about fixing that together afterwards.

*****

REALITY FICTION AND BEYOND!

Lightning strikes, rendering the Detective truly Electric in Chapter Eight of The Electric Detective, posting Friday, April 10th. Already up on Monday — the less than satisfied winners and always discontented losers after the results are tabulated for Episode Eight, Lem-Ish. Reality Fiction Three: The Interrupted Edition continues at:

http://realficone.blogspot.ca/

I’ll be honest. The end scene on Friday is what inspired the entire story. 

Episodes to Date:

Episode One: Dante-Ish — Mak’s Inferno

Episode Two: Chaucer-Ish — The Hermit’s Tale

Episode Three: Malory-Ish — Le Morte de Mak

Episode Four: Doyle-Ish — Mak the Kipper

Episode Five: Carroll-Ish — Madelyn in Wonderland

Episode Six: Stoker-Ish — The Down For The Count Shimmy

Episode Seven: Tolstoy-Ish — Anna Makerena

Episode Eight: Lem-Ish — So there is …

All with illustrations by the author. Working through the Contestants in order of their appearance. But there’s been some problems with the scanner, so appearances may be deceiving.