Writing from Anger and Sadness

Today, I was called a “miserable girl” by a loved one for expressing my unhappy feelings to them. Feelings that have been completely unacknowledged for quite some time.

Yesterday, something happened that made me angry beyond belief, a kind of anger a bear feels when a hunter gets too close to her cub.

Two completely unrelated events, two very loud emotions.

Well, I tell you guys all the time to write with heart. There’s a reason for that. Writing doesn’t always come from the good emotions. Stories won’t always feel like that fuzzy, butterfly warmth of love and happiness. Fear, Anger, Sadness, Broken Heartedness. It’s not fun, but stories and characters need some of that negative stuff too. It’s all about balance.

Once, in poetry class, while doing a writing exercise, my professor asked the class “What does anger feel like to you? Use metaphors and similes” Someone said it felt like bees buzzing in her ear, another said it was like a gorilla pounding on his chest.

Think of actors performing a scene where they need to make themselves cry. They think of sad moments in their lives, to evoke that emotion. Writers have to do the same, to create something special and deep, something that makes readers feel what you or your characters feel.

I’m gonna remember these not so great emotions, file them away in some folder in my brain. And when I write a story, and need to tap into a certain feeling, I have personal experience as material.

Make something good out of the muck of life. Someone has to.

Write with Heart,

Lady Jabberwocky.