Can a Writer Rely on Feelings?

This follows on from my previous post: FF is for Feeble Feelings – take a look to remind yourself.

Since writing that piece, I’ve noticed a growing trend on social media – authors happy to admit they like nothing more that writing – it’s their happy place, it’s what they can do, it’s where they are most at home. Maybe it’s going too far to call our writing a form of escapism – or is it?

Our lives ebb and flow and our experiences lead to mixed emotions. No one who lives has never been sad even if they aren’t always able to recognise contentment within themselves.

I write as an older person, retired, relatively tie-free. It’s a privilege to be able to write. I am however interested in what makes me able to write even when life throws darts and boiling tar.

So, What Makes Writers Able to Cope?

Any writer will be wise to harness emotional experiences as they create characters, settings and stories. But is feeling like a writer enough to make me a writer? I’d say, ‘Yes, at this point in my life.’

It’s no secret I’ve not yet had a novel published. What is marvellous is that I am now over halfway through a first draft. What is it about me feeling like a (real) writer now that has enabled me to succeed in getting so many words onto the screen?

Here’s What I Think:

• I am old enough to have lived through several different decades from the 50s through to the present. In that time, I’ve witnessed history unfolding, endured personal heartache, been ill so many times even I’ve lost count now. All these elements combine to make me, Me.
• I have been writing for over 40 years, on and off. Yet I am not published as a novelist. This has not caused me to give up. I will finish the novel-in-progress and submit it. I will seek representation and I will persevere.
• I have more stories than one inside me, including the two novels I have not yet completed.
• I am not starstruck but I know which writers I like most. However, I read widely enough to know that not all authors sell millions of books – but some do. It is being a writer who enjoys my chosen method of creativity that keeps me clacking away at the keyboard.
• I have good support as someone who has some care needs but mainly from my family. My sons would be forgiven for believing they’ll never see the day a book of mine is published but they’ve also never known me this dedicated.
• The Later Writer is my safety net. When I need to think things through, I come here.
• I am a reader who has stories to invent for other readers.
• I have a particular fondness for reading the debut novels of authors, whether a recent publication or the first of many published since that first one.

So, What Are Your Feelings As a Writer?

A series of questions to bear in mind during the coming week:

1. What mood am I in when I easily sit down to write / what moods always prevent me writing?
2. What noise prevents me writing / is silence what I always need?
3. Do I always have to be alone / can I write at a coffee bar?
4. What do I call writing? Is it preparing a new piece, research, plotting, planning, character-building, scene-setting, first drafts, getting to The End … or all those things?
5. Is there any one change I can make in my daily routine that will get me writing more than I have done lately? Or am I perfectly content with my output?

Lastly …

If you are reading this and thinking: I cannot write today/tomorrow/next week because:

• I am not good enough
• I have just had Covid / might be about to test +ve
• My kids are home on school holidays
• My husband/mother/child is sick in hospital
• The world’s concerns are my concerns and it’s all too much
• I’m too tired
• I need to go on holiday
• I need to go shopping

then my advice is two-fold:

• check you aren’t giving your Inner Critic too much leeway
• cut yourself some slack if your feelings really are preventing you from writing a lot – just write one sentence

Finally, I hope you soon find your own Write Mood (which leads back to one of my older posts).