How Writing Makes Us Feel

Copyright Glo Lewis 6/19/2023

 

Dear Readers of My Blog, 💖

 

I am crafting this post on June 19^th, which is the federal holiday in the United States of Juneteenth, a commemoration of the emancipation of enslaved African Americans. I am taking time today to write, which is honoring this date when our nation celebrates freedom. And what could be more liberating than writing one’s thoughts in a healthful manner—not in a hateful or diminishing way toward another, but in a productive and positive fashion?

I want to remind my readers that to loosen up, as it were, my blog posts begin with a discussion of some points of my health regimen, such as exercise, but quickly move on to their main thrust of writing tips. I am not a doctor, nurse, or any other member of the medical field. This first part of my blog is meant as a commiseration with other seniors of the unique nature of our physiques and metabolisms as we age, and how I am dealing with the aging of my body and mind. In no way am I advocating for any certain protocol, but rather, I am simply sharing my approach to remaining healthy as a senior, while ambling along on the real estate of my creative terrain. Obviously, if we’re not well, we can’t write well. But, if this part of my blog doesn’t interest you, feel free to scroll down to where we begin our discussion about writing.

How Writing Makes Us Feel:

Now, let’s discuss how writing makes us feel, tying this dynamic into paragraph one above, because for me, writing invigorates and boosts my self-esteem; it helps me to feel free, and we can’t get too much of that, albeit in a safe modality. In writing, we are freed by its organic process, by the expression of our thoughts, and our mood is heightened—lifted from low-grade depression-- by doing our best work, because then we are not only proud of ourselves and our work, but we are also buoyed up by the hope and dream of writing even better as time goes on. If you are working on your writing, you are a writer. Some of us have had a checkered past in the love affair with writing. For me, personally, writing has been like a lover—both good and bad, beckoning and shutting me out. For example, after six years of researching and writing my historical fiction novel (Avezzano and New York), (which I have mentioned before and will continue to draw from like a cup within a deep well), I no longer had even a lukewarm desire to write. I was burned out. Yet, here we are, and I am eager to go again. Writing has always been like this for me—periods of intense work followed by deep contemplation. I so wish that I were prolific like the great writers who are legends, but I’m not. I must accept my own limitations. In Clint Eastwood’s 1973 movie, “Magnum Force,” Inspector Harry Callahan says, “A man’s got to know his limitations.” Even so, operating within our own parameters, we can still achieve our own personal best, and that’s always a worthwhile endeavor and something we can be proud of.

In the movie, “Saturday Night Fever,” John Travolta’s character, Tony Manero, says to his dance partner, Stephanie Mangano, played by Karen Lynn Gorney, “Stephanie, why don’t we ever talk about how dancing makes us feel?” In my view, this question is such a worthy reflection. Therefore, I would suggest that you connect with how writing makes you feel. I would believe that it’s a positive experience, or probably, you wouldn’t engage in it. So, I ask that you allow yourself to remain connected to that soul-nourishing vibe and explore how to really get into that skin to feel your personal best as often as possible; let’s all strive for this merging of persona and anima, to borrow from Jungian philosophy.

Now on to today’s writing discourse:

Creating a Map of a Novel:

For those of you drafting a novel, one of the things that I learned decades ago in Writer’s Digest Novel Writing School, was the importance of creating a map of the novel. The Writer’s Digest program was a course that I enrolled in years before I returned to school, in the Master’s in Writing Program. Writer’s Digest paired me with a writing mentor named Dov Silverstein, who, to my sadness and disappointment, moved to Israel in the middle of the second term. The course was completed strictly via the U.S. mail with a back and forth of story drafts and comments because this was before the Internet was a household utility. Dov stressed that once a map of the novel was created, one didn’t have to follow it, but rather, it would be a guide that we could rely upon, particularly if we lost our way in the work. This advice proved to be invaluable to me when I was writing Avezzano, and surprisingly, here’s why: Quite unexpectedly for me, as a novice novelist, as I worked my way through my book, the characters took on a life of their own and began to rise up with their own plans and dialogue, including their own plot direction in the novel. I had heard of this phenomenon from reading excerpts and articles by other writers, and finding myself deep into my own work, it happened to me. I remember feeling disoriented by it and thrashing about mentally one day. And then, repeatedly, I referred to the story that I had set down in my map of the novel, chapter by chapter, what should happen. And just as Dov had advised, I realized that I didn’t have to follow the map, but I could be guided by its suggestions, often reaching a compromise between my initial plan for the book as I had committed it to paper years before, and the actual plot twists and character development that sprang up from the soil of fertile imagination like new vegetables as my story came to fruition in real time. So, bottom line, make a map of your novel, but don’t be corralled by it. Rather, let your characters speak organically from the wellspring of their own maturation on the page.

Naturally, if you tell someone who doesn’t write fiction that your characters began to direct your writing, especially where their dialogue is concerned, they may think that you are either pretentious or possibly even a little crazy. But don’t worry about that. You don’t see Quentin Tarantino or Kevin Costner having slowed down in their careers when a landslide of criticism was leveled at the prolific violence inherent within their films. Criticism is always something to consider and evaluate; then take the valuable from that pause, and dismiss the rest, or you’ll never fly with the wings of your own words.

The way in which I have always worked is to have one trusted person as my coach, to whom I read my starts and my revisions; if you don’t have such a person, be your own other person. Read your work many times and polish it to a high sheen at the end, remembering to use highlighting and the “B” key to bold and unbold during re-writes, so you won’t forget to tackle something that you wish to revise.

Be Bold:

It is worthwhile to remember that it’s almost always best to be bold in your writing. Failure to be original and bold will normally lead to mediocrity. So, at base, as writers, we must overcome our own fear. This doesn’t mean to write crazy, thoughtless, or meanspirited material that will land us in legal, employment, or relationship trouble. Excellence in writing should comprise considered thought, use of dictionaries and a thesaurus to sprinkle our copy with a fine dust of confection to find that coveted “sweet spot” of word and thought.

Boldness springs from the root of mining your life experience. For example, in the movie, “As Good as It Gets,” Jack Nicholson’s character, the novelist, Melvin Udall, who suffers from depression, writes in one of his novels, “You saved my life—you have to make it up to me.” Now, we must ask ourselves, why would the character say such a thing, and why would the depressive author write it? The words would be said and written because we know how agonizingly tough life can be, and to put that pain on paper requires mining our souls for our own truth and then being willing to jump over our fear of readers gleaning insight into our history and our pain in order to get it down on paper. So, boldness requires not being fearless, but being willing to overcome our fear in the service of art. No one said that being a writer would be easy. But when we write, we have our writing shoes on, and we step into the skin of greatness like a professional.

Intrigue:

When I was working on a collection of short stories in graduate school, for which I was awarded the Oregon Laurels’ Award, one of the writers in a writing circle remarked that all my stories had a gun in them. I realized that that was mostly true, although not my children’s book. And upon pondering this remark I concluded that my introduction of a gun as a prop in story was to add an element of intrigue. You can add intrigue, or darkness, in a variety of ways when writing. You can create a mysterious character, or one given to fits of rage, or one so enigmatic that no one can predict their behavior, making everyone wary and on edge. You can use weather, light, and shadow, dark or leathery or worn clothing, and so on, to create mystery. So, a gun isn’t necessary, unless you are working in certain genres such as westerns, or police and true crime stories. But a gun immediately adds a bold touch. Now, for example, you can add an unpredictable character, a lawless city, or a catastrophic event, and immediately, you have intrigue and a bold backdrop. Let the language of your prose and the dialogue spring naturally from character, place, and time.

I recall seeing an episode of true crime on the ID channel, where a young woman was recounting the tragic tale of her mother’s murder by a man whom the mother had dated after her divorce from the young woman’s father. She described the first time that she had seen the boyfriend who would become her mother’s killer, as watching from her bedroom when he first came to the house, wearing a long, dark, leather coat, describing how his mere clothing had a menacing aura to her adolescent sensibilities.

Finally, in being bold, I recommend, and learned as I worked, get the words down on paper. Don’t hold back. You can always cut later during the editing phase. So go forth, and be a bold writer.

God Bless, and more to come…Glo