Inside the Mind of a Writing Addict: Secrets They Dare Not Share

The idea came to me once while brushing my teeth.

The mint foam dripped down my chin, and I had no towel nearby, but my brain decided that now was the time for the best sentence I’d ever write. Of course, I had to spit, wipe, and lunge for my phone to type a half-coherent note before the thought evaporated.

The result on my screen: “shoes=memory thing, add later.” No context, no subject, nothing usable. And yet, my pulse slowed once it was written down, as though I’d scratched an itch in my brain.

That’s when I realized writing isn’t just a hobby or even a craft for me. It’s a low-level addiction. And I don’t mean that metaphorically. Writers talk about “flow state” and “discipline,” but what about the restlessness, the cravings, the withdrawal? Those are symptoms too. The itch to write is not always noble or romantic.

Sometimes it’s just plain inconvenient.

I get ideas in the worst places. In bed, in the shower, driving to work. It never happens when I’m sitting dutifully at my desk, fingers poised over the keyboard, waiting for inspiration. No, the ideas love ambush. They pounce when I’m finally relaxed or distracted, when I can’t possibly write them down.

If I’m in bed, I’ll reach for my phone, squint into the glow, and type sentences that look like alien code in the morning. If I’m driving, I’ll pull over and hammer out notes on a receipt or leave myself a voicemail like I’m reporting a crime. Once, I scribbled an entire paragraph on the back of a Chipotle napkin. The pen tore the paper halfway through, but I kept going.

When a good idea arrives and I can’t write it down, I feel itchy. Physically itchy, like there’s an ant crawling under my skin. The rest of the day becomes about waiting until I can sit down and get it out. I’ll pretend to listen to my wife, nodding at the right moments, while my brain is off rearranging a sentence about anxiety or midlife. My body is present, but my head is halfway into a draft.

This is where the addiction analogy makes sense. It’s not that I want to write. It’s that I need to, in the same way a smoker needs a cigarette when the craving hits.