What do you do when your emotions interfere with your writing? I had an especially bad day. I got home, took an hour to decompress, and started on my wip. It was a disaster. Both my hero and heroine sounded cold, angry, and whiny all at the same time. I cut the whole scene and saved it in my junk file. Then I turned off my computer and attacked my bathroom with a scrub brush.
Let me tell you a little about my junk file. It's full of over the top, love you, hate you, wish you were dead scenes. The character's emotions are all over the place. Looking at the file, I realized something interesting about myself. I can't write usable scenes when I'm angry or stressed. I've heard it before and will probably hear again that I should be able to write no matter what. Sorry. I'm not wired that way. I can only handle one problem at a time.
Give me calm, happy, bored, or even sad and I can get in the zone, no problem. Thank God I'm not a chronically angry or stressed person. My bathroom would glisten, but I'd never get any writing done.
Posted by
Shawn
5 comments:
At least you know that about yourself! Some people don't see how they hamper their writing. Good for you!
I suffer from SADD. This time of year is extremely hard for me to do anything productive. Sometimes, I fight it, write anyway, sometimes I don't. And, sometimes, if I'm lucky, I use it to envoke emotion.
I think you have to know yourself, when you can push through and when you can't. I have an entire novel that will never see the light of day because it was written during a year when I was completely stressed 24/7. On the one hand, the writing helped me cope. On the other hand, there is no way to fix it without a total re-do...and then I'd have to revisit my Year of Stress. It's in a Someday drawer right now.
I think knowing myself is most of the battle and I'm glad I do. Besides, I ever stay angry for long. And Kristi,I too have a mss that will never see the light of day. I still have it, but I don't think there's any hope. Not even a total re-do will help it. It was the first complete mss I ever wrote.
But then there are the times when you want to write an angry scene! It can be just as hard to write anger when you are in a mellow mood as the opposite. So I do with those moments the same as I do with conversation that I overhear that is useful -- store them away in a writer's notebook. I note how the feelings are expressed, the facial expressions and body language, write "Anger Scene #12 at the top" and put it in a file! (smiles). Or 'when hero exhibits childish behavior...'
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