OBSESSIONS

Have you ever made a list of your obsessions? You think you have none? There are many? We all have them and they change and grow, or fall off and others take their place. Some are, thankfully, forgotten but there are some we should embrace.

Writers always wind up writing about these obsessions whether in nonfiction articles or essays, or giving these characteristics to one of our characters. Things that haunt us; incidents we can't forget; dreams or hopes or pain we carry--our minds going over them again and again, unwilling to release them.

What are my obsessions? Writing. Reading. Traveling. Politics in an election year. Christmas. Attempting to get everything right. Once I obsessed with hiding the fact I was an abused wife, wanting to protect the illusion that we were an okay family, needing to keep my job, not wanting to admit that I needed to get out of the marriage and get a life. This is an extreme example of obsession but, if you look at this, there is nothing in existence that we can not be obsessed about.

Obsessions do have power in our lives--and the lives we create in our stories. We can harness this power in both instances. Are our characters obsessed with each other, or a crime that happened years ago? Do we have people, instances, or something in our lives that could be considered an obsession? For example, I don't consider myself whole unless I write something each day, and am obsessed with keeping the freedom to do that writing. Don't get between me and my computer, anyone!

Now that's obsession.