Writing Through Adversity....

I particularly liked an article received from www.writers.com/ (Vol. 11, No. 10October 2008) so I hope they don't mind if I copy some of it below:

The more writers I work with, the more I admire them as a whole and as individuals. Writing is hard work. Few writers work under ideal conditions and most, at some time or another, face real adversity. I've worked with novelists with serious health and disabilities -- although I'm usually not even aware there are any problems until after the fact. Folks who can handle raising children and making a living while still finding time to write on a professional level are unsung heroes who probably need more sleep than they ever get. I've worked with writers who are dealing with emotional demons on a daily basis, but who still deliver the goods.

We all face rough patches in life, Sometimes a series of minor stresses mount up to major trauma. I've seen writers deal with life's small bumps and bigger piles of problems and still keep on writing.

Any form of work can serve as both a curse and a cure, but I begin to think writing has a particular power to bring order, calm the turmoil, relieve emotional pressure, and repair at least some of what unravels in the fabric of one's life. Psychologists and psychiatrists have, for more than twenty years, been proving that writing about traumatic, stressful, or emotional events (often called "expressive writing") can improve physical and psychological health. But that's not what I'm talking about here. Nor am I referring to other forms of self-healing or self-discovery claimed for writing. I'm merely saying that the act of creating a fictional world and its characters, composing an essay, trying to meet deadlines, or simply putting words into meaningful order and paragraphs into a whole can -- despite the challenges, frustrations, and stress that writing can evoke -- bring order to your life and release from its anxieties.