Mel thank you for sharing.

"bringing everything to the surface" really hit a nerve with me.....
There are some issues that keep resurfacing when I write, I am too afraid to address them... they just haunt me and linger in my subconscious,
But like you said "the process is WORK".
Thank you so much again, your post really helped :)

Without writing I don't know if I would have made it through the past five years. Long story short, along with the normal tribulations of raising a family (I have five kids) writing is a MUST to keep me sane, but my family also has dealt with three suicides of close friends in five years. I believe in writing as a process for healing, I know for a fact it clears the soul... but it also does all the things above you listed. At one time I had manuscript on my bed, spread out, trying to organize chapters and I ended up throwing the entire thing all around the room. I abandoned it for six months and then went back through it for an entire re-write.

The process is not easy, it is WORK, pure and simple gut wrenching work... and it feels like hell sometimes as it brings everything to the surface for you to deal with (and deal with, and deal with) but ultimately it helps...it brings order to the chaos, light from the darkness, hope from hopelessness. Yes, all those things that seem trite and cliche' now.

The power of the process of writing has become a sacred thing to me, and I think it can be whatever we want it do be.

Mel