To make a long story short: I just got finished writing chapter twelve for Red Reign and that was an emotional chapter for me.
It was so emotional that I was tearing up about to cry and shaky from it.
In all my years of writing, I HAVE NEVER WRITTEN ANYTHING THAT EMOTIONAL BEFORE!!!
I am still shaking and wanting to cry because of it!
Has anybody ever got like that? Is that normal? Am I okay?
It is the weirdest thing.
When I wrote the House of Naivin, I donāt EVER remember getting shaky and wanting to cry and the same applies to Into the Chaos.
Actually, Iāve NEVER got that way!
I am scared because in the next chapters are going to be even more emotionally heavy too.
I hope I donāt get that way for all the rest of them.
Look, Iām about as coldhearted as they come and yeah, I get some hellish lows from writing something that is emotionally draining. They say creating something is a lot like having your own childāthatās highs, lows, mourning, celebration, despair, the whole lot.
Thereās a couple reasons it happens:
Emotionally invested leaves you with heartache. Many of us canāt write the end of story without feeling loss. I hate ending stories because it feels a bit like Iāve ended this world.
Personally invested means our own trauma winds up in our writing. Itās why I take To Make a Kinder Childrenās Tale so hard. Itās heavily tied up in my motherās death. I didnāt do a lot of outward mourningāits in that book.
So, when someone who is fighting against a personal breakdown writes something that is either directly tied to themselves, or is their baby in the midst of their fighting their own demons, I really expect moments where it should be FAR worse than my own experiences. As bad as my momās death was, Iām tough as hell and Iām way older than most. Thatās not to downplay thingsāitās just to put things in perspective.
Now, as far as what kind of impact it has on youāthatās probably a therapy session.
Now, aside from all this, a general thing I find lacking in this idea of self-care:
Too many times in the effort to declare things ānormalā, we fight to prevent ātherapyā because we believe that things going right means that things should be healthy. Or that things that are healthy arenāt things that should need work. That ideology is killing our society and is again, my disgust with labels. People need to be able to accept that something is right but can still be better, needs help, and still hasnāt integrated for you. This all or nothing society drives me nuts.
Thank you so much.
I honestly wasnāt planning on making Jorildyn an emotional character who has a lot of empathy towards people yet she also happens to try to be the hero and save people.
I donāt think Iāve ever written a character like her.
The last time a book made me cry it was Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. When the last plane lands and they canāt open the doors because someone came on board with the plague and now everyone on board is infected, it was so sad! I hope I can write like that someday and wring emotion from the reader, but all we can do is keep reading and writing until we improve. ĀÆ\_(ļ¢)_/ĀÆ
The longer I am into Red Reign, the better my writing feels than before.
I mean yeah it needs so much work and it is a zero/first draft, but something about the later chapters feel like I am improving a different way.
I wonāt say I am getting better, but I am improving in such an odd way.
Chapter twelve is an interesting example of that.
Iāve always kept a level of distance when writing fiction. But today I learned about doing emotional work through writing fiction. Which could prove extremely helpful for me as a researcher working with very heavy topics.
The last time I cried about my writing was when I did a piece of auto/biography for a class. It felt good to get it off my chest. The tears came when I received feedback from my lecturer who sat me down and discussed it with me. I felt so seen.
Iāve heard of many writers crying and getting emotional over their stories, so it is common or normal. Personally, itās never happened to me but thatās also because itās hard for me to cry or become emotional with stories, even with my own. xD
One says yes, absolutely. Because it builds passion and motivation for writing.
And the other says no. You need to let go of emotion, and acknowledge it is a fantasy youāre creating. You wonāt be able to use what youāve learnt through the writing process in your real life.