This is a response to http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/why-its-easier-to-write-when-youre-sad/ and http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/why-its-harder-to-write-when-youre-happy/ from @ThoughtCatalog.
Why Writing Is Not Dependant Upon Your Emotional State.
Writing is a
craft. It is a learned skill. The ability to know words, to
understand language and to construct sentences is something which most of us
are already familiar with – whether you see yourself as a writer or not – to varying
degrees of astuteness and heritage.
But at the end of the day, saying that writing is easier when you’re sad
is akin to saying that writing is hard when you don’t want to do it.
The real issue here is
not whether or not writing is easier when you’re sad, but how your perception
of writing manifests in the first place.
The familiar image of
the ‘Depressed Writer’ is a stereotype that continues to persist among the
collective unconscious. I have
said in the past that stereotypes exist for a reason, and it is entirely true
that this particular one is not an exception – writers, or any artist really,
generally tend to be an overly emotional and dramatic bunch. And that’s because our very trade
depends upon the ebb and flow of drama – good writing involves arcs in which
characters experience peaks and troughs, which should generally be triggered by
dramatic twists. A story in which
the character is blissful throughout has a limited shelf life.
However, the idea that
writing when you’re depressed is any more difficult to writing when you’re
abundantly overjoyed is fucking stupid.
Writing is writing; ideas
are ideas. If you’re a good writer,
then you write whether you’re happy, sad, depressed, ecstatic, high, drunk,
sober, bored, inspired, uninspired or so busy that you have no spare moments to
pen a shopping list, let alone a coherent thought.
The energy of your
writing; the way you perceive that
writing is another matter – but at the end of the day, it’s actually not that
critical to whether you’re writing in the first place.
If you think that
writing is easier when you’re sad, then that’s because you’re more caught up
with the idea of what a writer is than what a writer does. If you think that you have more
inspiration when you’re sad, or that it’s easier to write well when you’re
personally depressed because oh no my boyfriend left me! Or I lost my iPhone! Or I need to write an article for my
blog and I don’t have any ideas!
Then you’re very clearly missing the point.
When asked what he
thought the best intellectual training for a would-be writer was, Hemingway
said, “Let’s say that he should go out and hang himself because he finds that
writing well is impossibly difficult. Then he should be cut down without mercy
and forced by his own self to write as well as he can for the rest of his life.
At least he will have the story of the hanging to commence with.”
You write about your
experiences, your opinions and here’s-fucking-hoping a quirky idea that leads
to some kind of point; good or bad, happy or sad, curvaceous or flat.
If you think that
writing when you’re happy is difficult, then you need to pick another trade.