Writing Pains

 10 yrs ago, I met up with an extremely talented writer who switched careers and became a doctor. She said the switch happened b/c writing was exhausting and painful. It was required too much emotional honesty and self-examination. "Medicine is easier." she said. I laughed thinking it was a joke, but the doctor was serious. For her, it was easier to become an MD than to rake yourself over the emotional coals of life. 

Fast forward to several years later, and I'm at a doctor's appointment. The doctor asked what I do and then he lights up. He always wanted to write a book. Memoirs. He described his childhood. It sounded interesting. Now that he's older and only working part-time, he has the money, he has the time, he has the space. Just a matter of doing it. Sounds great to me. A few months later I have a follow-up appointment. I asked the doctor about how the writing was going. He sort of grimaced and said he stopped all that. He didn't ask me any further questions about my career or craft. In fact, he seemed annoyed. I touched a soft spot. 

These days, I find that I'm writing with more deliberation. It's not that the truth isn't there, but what's on the surface has already been explored. I'm looking for new stuff buried even deeper. The excavation means I experience new sensations, new discomforts, things that I thought were healed that turn out to be just sealed tombs of ghosts. I've been thing about that as I'm both writing multiple projects and caretaking for a loved one and working my way through the medical profession.

The writing discomfort doesn't go away with experience. But I flinch less and I'm less likely to equate a new sensation with pain. Perhaps that's what a true masochist is really thinking. It's not pain, it's scintillating, shocking, vibrant sensations that others categorize as torture. Writing is that self-administered shock therapy that transmits itself into words.  We are constantly adjusting the dials on the electrodes, searching for the searing truth that resonants through our bodies with electrical clarity.