Write To Life: Surviving So You Can Create Another Day

I read somewhere once that psychologists say that writers have a higher rate of depression and suicide than non-writers.

Apparently the logic is that whatever makes you sensitive to the world and is useful to your craft, can also destroy you.

I guess that’s true, some of my favorites—Hunter S. Thompson, Sylvia Plath, and Ernest Hemingway all checked out early.

A writer is the most productive when his life is boring.

You can’t write when there’s shit going on.


We’ll call this the SGO Phase. The point of the writer is to survive the SGO Phase so he can return to the land of the boring, sit down, and crank out a report. The writer comes down off the mountain, if you will, with the wisdom, and hands it to the reader. How many times have you had that “a-ha” moment reading your favorite writer? They get you and you get them.

Now, if you’re a writer and you’re stressing about why your wife or husband left you for somebody else, stressing about paying the mortgage, stressing about how to pay the light bill, stressing that your life holds no meaning, and then you kill yourself over it, how can you come down from the mountain?

You can’t.

There are things worth fighting and dying for. But dying because you can’t pay your mortgage or that your wife loves someone else isn’t worth it. If anything, fold that shit up into your work, make a SGO burrito of words and serve it.

There’s the old author adage to save the rage for the page.

What gets you through the SGO Phase process when it all seems hopeless? Here are a few things that I’ve learned.

Keep a routine and stick with it.
Fight, if you must, to write at the same time each day. Think about the days when you were most productive in your life. Did you get up and shower and eat breakfast first, then write? Did you go for a morning run? Did you have a day job, so you woke up extra early to get some words in before heading off to the paying gig? It’s difficult. When you’re in the SGO Phase, the last thing you want to do is anything. A friend once told me to go to work for yourself. It seemed to make sense. Whether you’re a paid author or not, treat your work like you would a job. If you’re serious about your craft, it is your occupation, right?

Be thankful for what you have, not what you don’t.
Sometimes when getting up in the morning to face another day, it all seems so hard and you ask yourself how you’re going to possibly make it through. It’s during these moments that I take the time to appreciate what I have. I have the ability to make up things and entertain people, which, I might add, is the Best Job in the World. I have family and friends who inspire and nurture me, and I have my health. Some days, when it’s hard to be thankful for anything, just be grateful for a steaming cup of coffee against your lips on a cold morning. It’s not much, but it helps.

Call a friend.
If it wasn’t for my friends, I’d be dead. I’m serious. Friends are the best thing going. If you’re like me, you don’t want to burden people with a lot of your personal bullshit that seems more like an exercise in self-pity. It’s OK, though—your friends want to talk to you, they want to help you, they want you to be safe. You don’t have to go through your SGO Phase alone. Pick up the phone.

Everything is impermanent.
One of the saddest things about suicide is that it’s a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Nothing is forever, including the way you feel. I started attending a Zen Buddhist monastery on Monday nights. We meditate for about a half hour, have some snacks, and then do some classroom study of Zen. The Buddhists like to use a word, impermanence. Meaning nothing lasts. It can seem a bit pessimistic. You mean this happiness won’t last? You mean that this relationship that I have with this person whom I love won’t last? You mean this raspberry Tootsie Roll Pop I’m enjoying won’t last (and how many licks does it take to get to the center anyway)? Nothing lasts. That includes the SGO Phase. It’s all impermanent. Realizing impermanence during your happy moments makes you enjoy them more, believe it or not. You begin to take nothing for granted and appreciate everything while it lasts.

Hopefully these are some things that you will consider before you decide to redecorate your bedroom wallpaper with blood, brains, and skull or take a permanent nap in a gas oven. If there’s one thing to be grateful for is that you’re a writer, you can write.

Not everyone can.

It’s a gift.

Nurture it, share it, enlighten people with it if you can.

Time to kick that SGO Phase to the proverbial curb and get back to the words.