Some Dark Thoughts

[teddy_radiator]

It's a very balmy 65+ degrees here in the South today. Not to rub anyone's nose in it. Far be it. I'm sitting here thinking some brooding thoughts.


I find that I have two basic ways of writing. One is to wake up early and allow the Muse to crawl in bed behind me and talk dirty into my ear while I'm slowly waking. Obviously, that is my preferred method. It's a lot of fun, and I get a lot of my 'lemony' chapters that way. I also get some great plot points to slide into place (steady).

The other way is to sort of work myself up into an angsty, brooding lather, by watching flicks like the one here. I'm sure y'all have seen it loads of times, but I just found it and it is the kind of thing that works perfectly for me. Real life grief doesn't work. When I'm actually depressed or upset, I can't write my own name. But when I look at something like this, and I allow the idea of pain, and sorrow, and the twisting, gnawing grief of the inevitable slash at my gut, I am capable of writing some fairly good stuff.

It is the thought of hopeless despair, and sacrifice, and fear, and certain knowledge of loss. Once those are in my head, and I'm near tears, I can write. It's kind of hard to write like this. At the risk of sounding like a pretentious twat, I really do turn myself inside out when I'm like this. I cry, I feel the pain my characters feel, I hurt. I know I sound so up myself, but that's how it happens for me.

I almost wrote something flippant about suffering for my art and loving every minute of it, but that so cheapens what I feel. Are my feelings any less real for manufacturing them for the sake of a character? Is that what writing is about? Sorry to be so melodramatic, but I'm feeling it bad here.

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Comments

[dickgloucester.livejournal.com]

You're not the only one who makes themselves cry writing.

I can't write when depressed. Oddly, I can write, and write well, when I'm angry.