January 31, 2011

Yesterday on a long Skype call, I talked with a writer friend about what fuels our writing.

For me, my favorite books (both in terms of the writing and how well they did after publication) were often fueled by some kind of pain or wound. Something difficult that I was going through (or one of my children) would spark an idea for a book, and the drive to solve the problem provided the passion and energy to see the story through to completion.

Negatives to Positives

Energy from hurts and wounds and pain can be very useful to you as a writer. But, if you’re just wounded, does that automatically translate into books others will want to read? No.

As Bill O’Hanlon says in Write is a Verb, “in order to have your wound fuel your writing process, the hurt or negative energy needs to be turned into creative energy, informing or driving your writing. It’s not enough to be wounded; you must find a way to turn that wound into energy for your writing.”

Pain = Energy for Writing

He quoted many authors (some quite famous) who had tragedies befall them, but they took the pain and turned around to write some of the most gripping books of our time on the very subject that nearly destroyed them.

It doesn’t have to be a wound the size of the Grand Canyon either (a child being kidnapped, losing your home in a hurricane, both parents dying from cancer the same month). It isn’t the size of the wound–it’s what you do with it that counts.

Just Let It All Hang Out?

In order for your pain to be useful to you as a writer, you’ll need to step back a bit and distance yourself from it. Otherwise you won’t be able to see the story possibilities in it. You’ll be too hung up on the facts. (“But it really HAPPENED this way!” you protest.) Yes, but facts need to be shaped a lot if you’re going to create a story or article or book from those facts. (The truth of your experience can shine through, despite changing some facts.)

Facts will need to change in order to create well-rounded characters, and the plot still needs a beginning, middle, climax and ending. Things will be added–and subtracted–from your experience to make a better story. If you can’t do that, you’re probably still too wounded to turn the experience into a viable story.

“Make no mistake. I have seen writing full of anger, self-pity, or hate that I think will never (and should never) be published,” says O’Hanlon. “They are simply expressions of the author’s pain, more like a journal entry than a book. They are self-indulgent and should be kept private… In order to turn that pain and anger into a book, the writing needs to somehow turn the personal into the universal.” In other words, the book needs to speak to other readers in a way that helps or nourishes them.

Identify Your Writing Energy

How can you tell if your pain and wounds might be energy for your writing? Here are four questions to ask yourself, suggested by the author. They can pinpoint sources of writing energy in your life just waiting to be tapped into.

• What do you care about so deeply or get so excited about that you talk about it to anyone who will listen?
• What upsets you so much that you are compelled to write about it or include the theme in your book?
• What are you afraid to write but know is a deep truth?
• Who are you afraid will disapprove of your writing or be upset by it?
• What fears could you write and perhaps work through by writing?

Take some time this weekend with those questions and a journal. Or write them on a card and take a long walk while you think about the answers. You may not be as blocked or depressed as you fear. You may simply be sitting over a deep pool of writing energy that’s just waiting for you.

6 Comments »

1. 

   Thanks for the mention, Kristi. The late Joseph Campbell, worried that his famous phrase “Follow your bliss,” was being misinterpreted as “do what makes you feel good,” once reportedly grumbled, “Perhaps I should have said ‘Follow your blisters.’”

   Comment by BIll O'Hanlon — January 31, 2011 @ 10:18 am

2. 

   Hah! No wonder things literally have to percolate 20 years for me before I can actually write about them so that only the kernal of truth remains! Yeah, I’m really slow.

   I think it’s Rohinton Mistry who said in a fictional work (it’s a father talking to a son who wants to write) it takes him a decade before he can finally sit down and write about events and shape them into a story. Real life is too messy.

   Comment by Vijaya — January 31, 2011 @ 11:37 am

3. 

   Well, and you need that cushion of time to actually draw the story out of all the emotion.

   Comment by Yvette — February 2, 2011 @ 9:17 pm

4. 

   Sorry to be so late in responding to comments…was trying to get home through the Dallas airport, which turned into a two-day deal. Glad to be home!

   Bill, I love that “follow the blisters” comment! How true, how true!

   Vijaya, real life can be VERY messy when you’re living it. It’s a great time to journal and capture the raw feelings, but percolating time is needed too. Perk, perk, perk…

   Comment by Kristi Holl — February 3, 2011 @ 8:34 am

5. 

   Emotion helps, but I think it’s the strength and focus we have to have to keep writing that does the most work. Emotion only seems to help for a temporary leap in word count. After a couple hours or a few pages, it loses its magic and I get stuck again.

   Comment by Constant Writer — February 4, 2011 @ 11:48 pm

6. 

   Constant Writer, I loved your blog posts (the ones on gossip/judging and Internet dependency). Well written–and thought-provoking.

   You’re right in thinking you can’t depend on feelings to keep you going in your writing. But focus without the emotion behind it can be just as difficult to pull off, I think. Takes both!

   Comment by Kristi Holl — February 5, 2011 @ 2:17 pm

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