Eric Benét Explains How Writing His Thoughts Helps Him Heal

Eric Benét is talking about creativity — specifically, how much writing informs his creativity and how therapeutic it’s been for him. In a recent Q&A with ESSENCE, the singer-songwriter talked about authorship as he’s working on an audiobook, and how writing has helped him connect with his children, but how it has also helped him as an individual. 

“I honestly feel like I’m one of those people where it makes no difference if I’m a recording artist or if I’m not, I would always be creating,” Benét explains to Okla Jones. “And that creativity comes out as music. That creativity comes out as stories. I like to write stories. When I was younger, I used to paint a lot. I used to do acrylics, watercolor. I don’t paint so much anymore. So yeah, it’s just a part of the DNA of who I am.”

It was while improvising a bedtime story for his daughters that he first tapped into writing as a creative outlet. He told them a story about a little boy and his dog, but it evolved into a much more elaborate tale. 

“It’s like this little boy whose mother got him a rescue puppy,” he recalled. “And of course it was a story for kids. So shortly thereafter, there was magic or science fiction involved and the little boy and his dog were traveling to different dimensions and saving people. My girls were so obsessed with the story, I decided, you know what? Let me start writing the story down. I always have these stories in my head, but I would tell them in orator form, but I never wrote them down—and this was the first one I wrote down.”

Benét says that writing his become something that serves as a release for him, even outside of music. 

“I found the process to be incredibly therapeutic,” he shares. “And without me even trying to, I felt myself working out some of my own pain or challenges from my own childhood while writing the story. And I’m really excited about it. And I decided that I would make an audiobook, which I’ve already started and which feels pretty good, which makes me flex yet another muscle because when you’re doing an audiobook and you’re doing all these characters and you’re bringing them to life, I’m basically acting. So it’s one of those things. And of course I’m going to have to write a song or write some music that goes along with the audiobook. So I get to flex all my muscles with this book. So I’m super excited about it. I hope that people enjoy it.”

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