Want To Be A Writer? You Crazy?

A panel in Yale recently discussed the link between creativity and mental illness. Psychology professor John Baer: "We know that for successful writers to be creative, they need to defy the crowd and ignore extrinsic constraints. Once you become famous, though, it's harder to do this. Successful artists bring a lot of stress upon themselves to be creative. Therefore, this increasing level of stress may be why they have greater incidents of mental illness." Great. First, you're unstable to attempt to write, and then when you're published, you're even more unbalanced.