Using Writing to Reduce Stress

“You worry too much”

If I had a nickel for every time I heard that, I would be rich. Despite this, I realize it is a major character flaw for me. I do worry too much and I stress about things that I should not stress about. However, the worrying and stressing are all part of who I am and how I choose to handle the psychological side effects of my character flaws is up to me.

I have found that writing is therapuetic. It doesn’t matter what I am writing about, as long as I am writing about something. I could write in a journal, a seperate blog I am keeping or work on one of the three stories that I am currently in the process of creating. I could even start a few more story lines I have been happily entertaining in my head but have not written down on paper, yet.

Sometimes the results of stress lead me to a storyline. For example when my sister in-law was in critical condition following a horrible car accident, I had a re-occuring dream that the Grim Reaper/Death was stalking me. He would appear at odd times, give me a non-verbal warning and then disappear almost as quickly as he had come. I was also in my first semester of college and attending college full time and working 25-30 hours a week as a cashier for a large retailer. My stress level was unbelievably high and I was too busy to come up with a constructive outlet for my stress.

That particular dream continued through out her hospital stay and when she was transferred to a rehabilitation hospital the dreams suddenly stopped. However, because of this dream, I developed a story line that I am toying with as part of another story that I am currently writing. That other story is also from a dream I had several years ago.

When I am stressed, I find that my creative juices are usually flowing and I can actually work on a story for hours and come away feeling completely relaxed. My brain is working overtime anyway, so why not take advantage of that fact and put it to good use? Usually when my brain is on overtime, I find that I do my best work on my stories.

Stress and the situations that provoke stressful feelings in us can be used as inspirations in our writing and can also lead us to write fairly good stories or develop some good story lines for use in the future. That is where a writing journal comes in handy. If you cannot find the time to write for hours because your schedule simply does not allow it, you can write yourself a quick note in your writing journal. When you have a chance days, weeks or months in the future, you can bring out the journal and work out the ideas you wrote down previously.

Have you looked at a painting or picture and wonder what the story is that the artist or photographers is trying to tell?

Pictures can be a useful source to inspire writing. Recently, my grandmother gave me a picture of my grandfather and her on their wedding day. They would have been married in June of 1948, sometime after my grandfather, a World War II veteran, returned to the States from a long deployment in Germany.

This is the first picture I have ever seen of my grandfather who died a decade or so before I was born. In the picture he is standing beside my grandmother who is sitting. With his black hair, handsome facial features and gentle eyes, I can understand why my grandmother married him. The background to the picture is the living room of my great grandparent’s farmhouse.

Looking at these two young people, I wonder about their stories. My grandmother will occasionally tell me about her life as a young wife. However, when my grandfather died, his stories died with him. My grandfather very seldom talked about his experiences in Germany after he returned home, but there are other stories there that he could have shared with his family, including how he met my grandmother and his stories of adjusting to civilian life after his experiences in Germany.

Could an author look at that picture and write a story about two young lovers and their lives and struggles as they married and raised a family in the years immediately following World War II? What else does that picture say that would help the author write a story? It is obvious in the picture, even in black and white, they were very happy on that day. Both them are grinning from ear to ear and as you stare at the picture you can sense that they have a wonderful secret that they are sharing only with each other. What could that secret be and how will it affect those two people as they start their lives together? Could there be trouble down the road and what would happen if the marriage is successful or if it fails? What happens if a major illness strikes? How does that change the other come of their story together.

There are just as many likelihoods in that story as there are authors who could be inspired to write a novel based on that picture and the events leading up and the events following the moment captured in the photograph.