stress as creative meat

I’ve had terrible stress in my life at times. Sometimes, things became so hard that it ended in a nervous breakdown. This has happened twice in my life. I had a particularly bad week at work last week and also this morning. A drunk, violent and belligerent neighbor for some random reason decided to target my apartment unit for an attack this morning. I don’t know this man from Adam. His behavior became so out of control that I had to call the police. When someone is trying to break down your door or mess with your lock to get inside to attack you and you have no idea why - this is disturbing. When this person is a man and you are a woman who lives alone, this is frightening.

The police never showed up, by the way. I’ll speak on that another day.

I’ve already informed the management. We’ll see what transpires next week. Anyway, when I was much younger, such incidents would have thrown me into a full panic attack. I still have issues with anxiety and feelings of dread that come on now and then but I can handle them better and they aren’t as severe. But these experiences reminded me of how important prayer and using these incidents as impetus for creative inspiration actually are. I know it is hard when you are in the thick of it, to see the silver in a sour situation but that is where throwing yourself into creativity becomes imperative, not just to remain productive (and not letting everything fall apart like I’ve done in the past) but to retain your sanity.

I am quite sure that I will use this incident and the one at work last week for a scene in my next series. Tragedy, unpleasantness, melancholy and miserable situations can be grist for good stories.

In fact, I think most writers, and creative people in general, have experienced this and would agree. Bottoms up and happy writing!