At least that’s what Delle Jacob’s calls it. That all consuming need we as writers have to create. We forgo time with our family, friends, skip the laundry, order out fast food, don’t clean the bathroom. Our TBR pile reaches up to the ceiling waiting for us to shrink it down to a normal size that doesn’t impede access inside the room.
The more I say it, the more I think about it, YES, it is a sickness that causes all those people we write about to talk to us inside our heads, or, outloud if no one else is around. Because we’re NOT crazy. Right? They make us laugh, they make us cry, and sometimes they even piss us off when they won’t do what we tell them to do. Because we want them to be real. If we take the time to put them on paper, they ARE real. To us, and eventually, to the person who reads it after that wonderful acceptance email comes in.
And you know what, none of us want to be cured. There’s no pill or writing penicillin shot that will ever cure me. I love my sickness. I embrace my sickness. My sickness makes me whole.
What about you? 
August 26th, 2006 at 1:01 pm
Very well said. I agree 100 percent!
August 26th, 2006 at 1:40 pm
Definitely a sickness, but who wants to be cured when there are such wonderful support groups? Plus, if I didn’t write, I wouldn’t have an excuse not to do housework!
August 26th, 2006 at 3:02 pm
I embrace my sickness, too! It is all consuming, and right now, I love it.
August 26th, 2006 at 3:48 pm
I love my sickness, I freely admit it. I don’t think the Engineer loves it quite as much as I do, but he’s learning.
August 26th, 2006 at 6:33 pm
Well I don’t call it a sickness though Army Guy would probably call it one lol. Clean laundry is so overrated anyway lol.
August 26th, 2006 at 10:02 pm
Sickness is good. It gives me a reason to stay in bed
August 27th, 2006 at 3:07 am
Sounds familiar. I tackled a handful of books on that overflowing TBR pile in August though! And… I had characters talking to me too, and got a little of it on paper. More reading than writing this month though.