Emotional Upset when Writing

Exir · Dec 30, 2008

You should channel these feelings into your writing. I mean, really! I think it is actually a GOOD thing for you to feel so involved in this. Didn't a poet say that "poetry is bleeding from a wound?"

benbradley · Dec 30, 2008

Toothpaste said:
I wonder if you are really getting choked up, or actually very very angry. Every time you have posted in this thread about why you need to write this story, you couple it with a tale of someone denying the Holocaust. It sounds to me that you want to write about the Holocaust so that what happened is never forgotten, so that the ignorant will realise what fools they are.

I wonder if this anger coupled with the sadness of the truth makes it impossible for you to write. People can write through tears, but it is MUCH harder to write through rage. Maybe instead of writing this book for the ignorant fools out there (who, let's be honest, will always exist. I mean you wouldn't be the first person to write a book about the Holocaust, nor the last . . . these people enjoy being ignorant), write it in memory of those who died. And also write it to tell a good story. That might sound horrible considering the subject matter, but go watch Schindler's List again. The reason it works so well as a film is that it is first and foremost a good story. The characters are interesting, heck there is even a sense of humour. Tell your story about the characters in it, not about the subject matter. Tell your story with a view to the enduring human spirit, not the crushing evil in this world.

And forget about the losers who get off somehow in their ignorance. Try to move the anger to the side. They aren't worth the energy.

I can relate to the OP's righteous indignation of the Holocaust deniers. There are people who actively deny that men landed on the Moon, but even so, there are fewer of them than the Holocaust deniers, and those denying the Moon landings aren't dismissing the deaths of millions.

Steve, is it that you WANT to write specifically about the Holocaust deniers? That's sort of what I get from you.

Perhaps this is indeed something you need to "get over," but on the other hand I don't want to dismiss the power of righteous indignation propel one forward into writing something important (or at least make you feel you need to write it even if you find yourself unable to). One popular title that comes to mind is "Unsafe At Any Speed."

willietheshakes · Dec 31, 2008

I tend not to write when I'm not overly, catastrophically emotionally invested... Many's the day I've been in tears as I worked.

Given what I write, and my desperate need for therapy, it seems to work for me.

Pragmatic_Dreamer · Dec 31, 2008

Happens quite frequently to me. I get choked up, still I keep writing. The alternative is worse. If I don't commit the scene to pen and paper, it haunts me for hours afterwards, and my family grows quite concerned with the depressed me. When my stories make me emotionally overwrought, putting it down in prose becomes my top priority.

LaceWing · Jan 2, 2009

Thank you everyone who has contributed here. I was ready for these insights. You've given me a lot to process.

StevenJ · Jan 2, 2009

I'd like to echo LaceWing's thanks to everyone.

I do have an idea for a novel, but sadly there's a potentially fatal flaw in the concept, I believe.

Susan Lanigan · Jan 3, 2009

Sometimes the grimmest situations have their own brand of black humour. It might seem reprehensible to even consider this angle but sometimes pulling back the narrative voice a little depicts the horror more effectively than all the inchoate rage you can muster. There is black humour in the "Interesting Work" description, dreadful as it may seem to point it out.

There is some great literature about the Holocaust, such as If This Is a Man and Man's Search for Meaning. But if the effect this topic has on you is depressive and destructive, perhaps you need either to approach a different topic or else the same one but from a narrower lens.

Personally, I do sometimes get emotionally involved with the work. If I'm writing an extended piece featuring a perfectly horrible character, I can feel her (and it usually is a her) pull down my energy completely. I have to move to a scene with nicer people in it in order to feel better about myself!

Good luck with it Steve

Susan

StevenJ · Jan 3, 2009

Thanks very much for your help, Susan

Williebee · Jan 3, 2009

Steven, along with echoing many of the comments above, might I suggest this.

Try writing about why you can't write about it. Express those emotions, and explore where they come from. Write that. Perhaps you'll come to an understanding of "what" you feel, and gain a better handle on "why" you feel that way.

An example, that I've often used, comes from SF writer Spider Robinson. "Anger comes from fear, always." When I get angry, I try (when I can remember to) to figure out WHAT I'm afraid of. Why it made me angry. From there, I can address the cause, and not the symptoms.

Does it always work? Heck no, does anything ALWAYS work?

Emotional Upset when Writing

Exir

Out of the cradle endlessly rocking

benbradley

It's a doggy dog world

willietheshakes

Gentleman. Scholar. Bastard.

Pragmatic_Dreamer

Talks fast when excited

LaceWing

StevenJ

Bored Fanatic

Susan Lanigan

StevenJ

Bored Fanatic

Williebee

Capeless, wingless, & yet I fly.