I’m a Schizophrenic Bulimic

I read an awesome blog post called “Writing is Vomiting: An Extended Analogy by Dr. Chris Crowe and laughed my butt off.

Dr. Crowe lists ten different classifications of vomit and how each specifically relate to writers. Here are a few of my favorites:

“Closed-mouth Swallowers: people who write often and well but refuse to stop rewriting or to submit their work

Dry-heavers: writers who write lots of first lines or first pages but nothing else (most of us at one time or another)

Nauseated Non-emitters: people who constantly feel like writing but never get around to doing it (most of us at one time or another)

Projectile Vomiters: writers whose books make a very loud and a very big splash (James Dashner, Shannon Hale, Stephenie Meyer, JK Rowling, Sara Zarr)”

Vomiting doesn’t come easy to me, and sometimes writing doesn’t either. Dr. Crowe did include bulimics in his list, which is my personal classification. I force myself to vomit (up words) at least once a day, I hide my addiction from others and then I flush it all away.

The scariest part is that it’s the voices in my head that make me do it. This is the schizophrenic part of my diagnosis.

A whole cast of characters from at least four potential manuscripts keep me awake at night.

Emmalynn whines and whines that I’m not giving her enough attention, “Why won’t you let me out? I’m the most important person in here!”

Caellen just chuckles (with that deep, throaty, make-your-toes curl laugh) that unless I get out of bed he’ll take over my dreams.

Then there’s Stalker. His whisper is pervasive; it makes me look over my shoulder when I’m alone. “Let me out,” he hisses. “Let me out and I might leave you alone.” He threatens and teases. Stalker is the star of my nightmares.

If I want to get any sleep I have to force the voices out of my head (although Stalker is currently in a minimum security prison until I finish my other two novels. It’s much too easy for him to escape).

Sadly even after I’ve written, the voices still taunt me. “You know that’s not right,” they chastise. “Get up and start over.”

I’m afraid that if I ever get all my writing done a whole new cast of characters will take their place.

Will I ever rest in peace?

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