Writing feelings
I’m writing this on 6th November and I’ve just
signed up for NaNoWriMo. This is part of
my recovery plan as I come to terms with a year that has been full of sorrow.
With everything that happened, I had forgotten I’d started
NaNo last year, so was surprised to find that out when I finally accessed my page (what was my user name? Did I make a note of my password anywhere?). A title
‘Mike Lewis 4’ appeared. I searched through my documents, and found how I had
started my preparation:
‘Mike Lewis 4
A novel in which very little happens unless it somehow comes
together. Begins with Russell – aged 16
rejected, bullied, scarred. Too young for adult service, too old for kids. It
will probably never be published because my husband is beginning to remark on my books being
all around the house and I am fed up with paying towards them. I shall have to see whether I can find a
different publisher who asks me to take smaller numbers of books or, even
better, pays me to write them! Or I
could be spending all my time selling books rather than writing. But hey ho, off
I go!’
There followed three sketched-out chapters then nothing.
Somehow, I think that against the background of serious family illnesses my
heart wasn’t into a NaNo adventure.
Which has made me wonder why I write and why does anyone
write? For many people it is very useful to process difficulties by writing
them down. Like the fictional Mike Lewis, I am a trained clinical psychologist, so am very much
into people working through their feelings in this way. Yet I simply cannot do
it myself. But like other story writers I’ve noticed how the experience of trauma
sneaks out in fiction, but not until the writer is ready to allow it.
The only things I’ve written over the past year have been short
blogs (at arms’ length, not involving feelings) plus prayers and welcomes for
our online church services. The welcomes are like mini-sermons so involve delving
into the Bible to find fresh truths. That is always helpful, but I still kept
the resulting piece fairly impersonal. My biggest challenge has been to try to work
on a booklet about Christian relaxation when the last thing I have felt is
relaxed.
So, More than Writers blog readers, you are honoured as I
have begun to think these things through and write about them. Maybe this year for NaNo I can take some old
material and draft a fair bit of a decent-sized novel – but certainly not Mike Lewis 4 or
that canny psychologist will winkle out my feelings!
Annie Try is the creator of the Dr Mike Lewis Stories: Trying to Fly, Out of Silence and Red Cabbage Blue. All published by Instant Apostle.
Annie, thank you for your honesty. Your post blessed me this morning and I am glad you are writing again. May you find it becomes easier as time passes.
ReplyDeleteThank you Wendy.
DeleteI also find it extremely difficult to write or talk about my feelings. I am looking forward to reading Mike Lewis #4. It looks as if it will highlight a real problem.
ReplyDeletePerhaps so! Thank you Susan
DeleteI really do think it's hard to write anything without something of our own feelings and emotions sneaking in, as you put it! I sometimes think that's why I procrastinate, putting off the moment when I might see myself on the page, staring back at me as if to say, 'Well?' (Rude!) I really do wish you a much happier 2021 and lots more writing. x
ReplyDeleteThank you Fran
DeleteThank you Annie for your honesty. It's so hard, I understand that. Believe it or not, I also find it hard talking about feelings, but MTW has helped me do that a lot more. I'm sure you already know this, but you are part of a loving supportive community who want to cheer you on. And that is just what we will do as you start to write again. Sending love.
ReplyDeleteThank you Ruth
DeleteThank you for this blogpost. I agree about the struggle that we find in writing about emotions. In writing my first novel now, I’m having to ask: Really? Is that feeling truly in my character-or just me?
ReplyDeleteAll life experience is good for our writing - just some of it is really painful.
Delete"Thank you for your honesty' is very heartfelt from me, (it is 'normalising') as I have spent the past 2 1/2 years recovering the ability to really write after my own serious illness, and been heartbroken (not jealous, not sour or self-pitying, but weary and possibly resigned) when watching others streaming on ahead - I say this as a fellow-feeler, with empathy - it is very hard to find oneself unable - because the creative part of one doesn't function, and if you look later at what you were doing before things happened, they seem to've been done by somebody else, and to be impossible to pick up and continue... because one is empty. Not procrastination, not needing a writing prompt, or to enter a competition in order to get started. One is truly empty and only time will heal. And so it is good to hear from you that you are slowly moving towards regaining you creativity and the numbness is beginning to fade. My experience of beginning writing the novel which was my first published full length book (in the early 2000s) was that I played the music which chimed with my grief over the loss of a friend, and with tears - as the feelings worked their way through a story not totally unrelated but not 'of' that friendship. My hope is you will find a way to harness the feelings to your future writing. That the phoenix will rise as a depth and wisdom gained.
ReplyDeleteBlessings to you just as lovely as you are.
ReplyDeleteThank you Dawn
DeleteAnnie, I really feel for you. I know what you mean about having books around the house. My husband hasn't really complained about my 100 copies of Waireka in boxes around our house but they depress me. This is partly why I have signed up for the Creative and Critical writing course at our local university. Although I am probably the oldest on the course, my aim is to write better, and as you say, find a publisher who pays me to publish my book rather than make me pay for the process of publishing or having to take a big quantity of my own books to sell. You certainly deserve better, I've loved reading your books.
ReplyDeleteThank you Sheila, that’s a really encouraging reply.
Delete