What Writing/Editing Is Like For Me

I'm a little bit neurotic when it comes to my writing/editing jobs. Of that, my husband can attest. I try to keep things in check and balance work/family/life in general. But at times, I err on the side of over-working.

Do you think being neurotic goes hand in hand with writing/editing? At times, I think so.

I was reading Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis. The main character intrigues me. And she said something that really resonated with me. It is hard to admit, but this describes me quite accurately:

(page 256)

So back to my writing. And the continual labor of mind to which is put me began to overflow into my sleep. It was a labour of sifting and sorting, separating motive from motive and both from pretext; and this same sorting went on every night in my dreams, but in a changed fashion. I thought I had before me a huge, hopeless pile of seeds, wheat, barley, poppy, rye, millet, what not? and I must sort them out and make separate piles, each all of one kind. Why I must do it, I did not know; but infinite punishment would fall upon me if I rested a moment from my labour or if, when all was done, a single seed were in the wrong pile. In waking life a man would know the task impossible. The torment of the dream was that, there, it could conceivably be done. There was one chance in ten thousand of finishing the labour in time, and one in a hundred thousand of making no mistake. It was all but certain I should fail, and be punished--but not certain. And so to it: searching, peering, picking up each seed between finger and thumb. Yet not always finger and thumb. For in some dreams, more madly still, I became a little ant, and the seeds were as big as millstones; and labouring with all my might, till my six legs cracked, I carried them to their places--holding them in front of me as ants do, loads bigger than myself.

I find that my writing/editing projects are inseparable from the rest of my life. They consume me at times. And then to make sense of them, I assign a sort of method to them. Measurements, like she explained above about sorting. And even when there is no ultimate deadline, I still feel the urgency of it, like I must finish it or else.... things will fall apart.

Is this a good thing? I am not sure. But now I know there is one other person who feels the same way. Thank you, C.S. Lewis!