It’s been an odd week. Laying to rest someone who was dear to me, and yet I couldn’t attend in person so had to watch the memorial online. It brought back flashes of the pandemic when the whole world was dealing with personal losses and not being able to attend in person. So I watched and cried. Thanking modern technology for the ability to view a memorial that was happening hundreds of miles away, and still feeling hollow and bereft. Full of emotions, grief and loss. Tentative feelings of ‘not sadness’ and looking to the future.
What I have learnt about myself is that my emotions do affect my creativity, especially my writing. The problem is that sometimes I cannot connect to what I am writing and other times I find that the emotion I am feeling is not tying in with what I am writing.
However, I have found that it is ok to shelve that particular chapter or short story and come back to it another day. It has taken me a few months, maybe even a few years, to recognise and to acknowledge this. So here I am. Waiting a few days, or weeks, to write a particularly difficult scene that requires careful handling of the characters, their emotions and actions and the consequences that they will face.
I’m always aware of trying to portray uncomfortable, often violent, scenarios that are important for the plot or character development without being too graphic or explicit just for the sake of it. But it takes time and skill to create something that will be shocking yet understated at the same time, allowing my reader to fill in the details. This ‘writing with restraint’ can take time and effort to make it correct. Too little detail and the scene may feel flat or insignificant, too much detail and the opposite can happen, the reader can feel repelled or disgusted, especially if the genre I am writing is no graphic horror. I have mentioned the importance of having support as a writer through writing groups and beta readers, who can be honest and critique your work. The writing groups I work with appreciate when I add a ‘trigger warning’ to a certain scene or chapter, allowing the individuals of the group to opt out of reading if they want to.
So I am going to be gentle with myself and may leave the more emotionally intense pieces until I feel I can do them more justice than I can at the moment. Maybe I’ll just sit quietly in the garden with the dog and listen to the birds singing and feel the warmth of the sun on my face for a while.
In memory of Ann
