The Secret Dreamworld of An Aspiring Author – Writing as Therapy

This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.

by Anna Bell

In last week’s column I was wondering when I was going to find the time to write with a new baby on the way. From the comments and responses I received, the overwhelming consensus was that if you’re a writer you find the time. Something else in your comments struck me – it wasn’t that you just wrote because it was what you did, it was almost like people had to carve out time to write as it was ‘their time’. And it got me thinking, is writing my therapy?

A few weeks ago when I saw an advert on the television for an adult colouring magazine, I stared at the screen and wondered if I was seeing things. It was billed as an art therapy magazine and the idea was that colouring was beneficial to well-being. I laughed and scoffed – I simply didn’t get it. I wondered who on earth would buy it and thought the publishers had gone mad. It wasn’t until I read an article on the Stylist website about the rise in adult colouring books and how there was a publishing boom, that I started to understand what was going on. The more I read, the more I thought about how I write to relieve my stress and relax from everyday life. It dawned on me that writing is my equivalent of colouring in pictures and suddenly the adult colouring books didn’t seem so crazy after all.

I often think that I should leave my husband on babysitting duty at the weekends and take more time out for myself, but living in rural France there’s not really a lot for me to do on my own. The only thing I want to do is go off and find a cafe to write in. I know it’s naff to take a break and go and do my ‘day job’, but I feel so much better when I’ve had an hour or two of writing. Okay, so not every time I write. Sometimes, when I spend most of my allotted time staring at a blank screen, or when I write whole chapters that I know are rubbish and won’t make it through the first edit, I wonder why I bothered at all. But after most sessions I feel refreshed and relaxed.

I’ve recently started writing a blog about my French life on my website, and I’ve really enjoyed it. It’s a bit of a busman’s holiday, writing in my spare time, but it’s nice to write for fun, too. No deadlines, no pressure for topics, no reader expectations, it’s just me writing about my own experiences. I’ve never really understood the attraction of people writing their own blog before, but now that I’ve got a focus for mine, I suddenly get it. I’m enjoying sharing my life and I’m loving writing for fun. I’m not really a person with many hobbies but I could see my blog becoming one of them.

I’m fascinated to know what writing means for other people. I’ve got Matt Haig’s Reasons to Stay Alive in my TBR pile, but I know from reading reviews that writing is a big part of how Haig handles his depression. I think sometimes I take for granted how powerful a tool writing can be.

Is writing your therapy? Or is it just a job? Do you think writing can make a difference to your well-being?