The Right Mood for Writing by Kathryn Scherer

 

Do you find it easier to write something that matches the mood you’re in, or something that contrasts with it?

Imagine you come home from an emotional hospital visit, full of sadness and pain. And you sit down to work on a story which focusses on joy. Does it give you a break from your own strong emotions? Or do you just give up, unable to get into the right headspace.

Last week I was struggling to write the next chapter in my current work-in-progress. The main character is angry with events and feeling isolated. She needs to express her frustration to God. And I felt a real resistance to even attempting to write the chapter.

I’m familiar with procrastination, with the reluctance to get down to work. This resistance was stronger than that.

I wondered if I had misjudged how the character was feeling. Sometimes the aversion to writing a particular scene is because the story has taken a wrong turn. Or I’m trying to force a character to go where they don’t want to go. But I was sure this was the right direction. It was what the character and the story needed in order to progress.

  

I abandoned my attempts to write that day.

The next morning I was praying, not about the book but about issues in church and family. I realised that how angry and frustrated I was. I’d been trying to reason and rationalise myself out of my feelings. Or more accurately, trying to suppress them and just get on with life. I’d been watching comedy and sport, things that could lift my mood; filling any silence with podcasts. Doing everything to stop me having the space to allow my own feelings to come to the fore.

I wasn’t denying how I felt, but I certainly wasn’t taking time to work through it.

It struck me that the reason I was struggling to write the next chapter was because I didn’t want to explore those feelings. I didn’t want to inhabit emotions that were so close to my own.

It was only when I stopped running from my own feelings and allowed myself to own them, to bring them to God and ask him to provide perspective, only then could I inhabit the very similar emotions of my fictional character.

Writing that chapter then became easier, and quite theraputic. Although I was pleased to move on to a more upbeat story and lighten my mood!