Thursday, October 08, 2009

Emotion vs. writing

Although I'm loathe to admit it, emotion plays a significant role in my writing process. For example, this month is crunch time for submitting Valentine's Day stories and my personal life is such that the last thing on my mind is happy-ever-after.

I've seen variations of this in the past. Some of my darkest, most violent stories were written when I was angry (at the world, at the people around me, at myself), some of my saddest stories were written when I was in my deepest funks, and some of my best happy-ever-after stories were written when I had hopes of a happy-ever-after for myself.

Of course, market requirements mean that the stories driven by my emotional state and the stories editors want to buy aren't always in synch. Sometimes I just let my emotions spill onto the page and don't worry about placing the resulting manuscript until it's finished; other times, like now, I try to quash my emotions so that I don't miss a window of opportunity.

So, happy-ever-after, here I come!

3 comments:

pattinase (abbott) said...

Thanks for making me smile.

Carol Kilgore said...

Maybe your writing will be like the line from Field of Dreams:
If you build your happy every after world, it will come.

Carol Kilgore said...

That should be happy EVER after. Duh.