The push-pull of paradox
Writing is almost always a solitary activity. Even if you’re friends with other writers, even if you’re collaborating on a script, there comes a point when you need to push people away to focus and write.
But you can’t write anything of value unless you’re so plugged into the human condition that you’re able to capture it accurately. Can’t write dialog unless you’ve heard enough conversation to know what it should sound like. Can’t write emotion without either experiencing it yourself or having deep empathy for others. You can’t write unless you pull people close.
I’ve spent so many years trying to navigate this, not always making the best choices for myself or for my writing. I’ve had friendships and relationships that were intense and inspiring, but then I was too busy with them, and too involved emotionally, to write anything. And at other times I’ve locked myself away even from the people I’m closest to, because I need to write.
So many authors, in their acknowledgements, thank their family members for picking up the slack, for their patience. It does take a strong relationship to survive the inevitable “You’re great, but I need to be alone with the characters in my head for the next nine months while I write this novel,” which is a part of being a writer. And even if there are no other people affected by the writer’s solitude, I can go into reading or writing spells where I forget everything else, including work, food and sleep, and I come out at the other end somewhat dazed, having to apologize to my body and thank it for its patience.
In the same vein, there’s another paradox every writer has to navigate. Being overwhelmed with any emotion—particularly the big ones like grief, anger, or love—makes it impossible to write anything that isn’t a melodramatic and self-involved screed. But our experience with those emotions, our understanding of them, is what makes our words ring true, what makes others feel those very emotions. To effectively write emotion, you have to have felt it, but when you’re feeling it, you don’t always have enough distance to tap into what makes that emotion universal.
It can be strangely hard sometimes, to remember that I’m not just a writer, but a person. Who should be interacting with real people as well as fictional ones. That great experiences and emotions are worth having in real life and not just in epic fantasy. Especially since the pandemic, when so much of our lives has transitioned to the virtual, having interactions in the real world is a little like standing under a hot shower after you’ve grown numb to the cold. It singes, the skin prickles, and you feel uncomfortably and exhilaratingly alive.
Photo: My idea of extroversion is to go to a coffee shop and write outside the house.