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Are you scared by what you’re writing?

Worried ManYears ago, I read an arti­cle by William Sty­ron (author of Lie Down in Dark­ness, The Con­fes­sions of Nat Turn­er, Sophie’s Choice,) in a peri­od­i­cal called the Sat­ur­day Review of Lit­er­a­ture, which is no longer pub­lished. I wished I had saved it because I’ve nev­er been able to find it and it made a big impact on me.

If I remem­ber cor­rect­ly, Sty­ron sug­gest­ed that, crude­ly speak­ing, the writer is moti­vat­ed by two forces, emo­tion­al and intel­lec­tu­al. That, at best, when writ­ing, these forces are equal­ly at work but that it is the emo­tion­al that gives force and pow­er to writ­ing. It is the intel­lec­tu­al side that shapes, and con­trols. More­over, the intel­lec­tu­al mon­i­tors the emo­tion­al side. Things go awry, he sug­gest­ed, if the intel­lec­tu­al cen­sors the emo­tion­al, which is to say the writer becomes fear­ful or backs away from what he/she is writ­ing. Yet it is the emo­tion­al which more often than not moti­vates the author to write.

Being scared of what one is writ­ing hap­pens quite often. Are you shy­ing away from some­thing because it seems fright­en­ing? Are you pulling back because you are afraid of mak­ing some­thing (an idea, rev­e­la­tion, secret, or act) public?

I knew a writer who was writ­ing a thriller. Quite casu­al­ly, he asked him­self, “Who am I most like in this book?” The quick (in the head) answer: “The vil­lain.” It stopped the writer (and writ­ing) cold. Mind you, it was all in his thoughts.It took months of self-ther­a­py to sort that one out, so he could con­tin­ue writ­ing. (Aside: I was once told that the occu­pa­tion­al dis­ease of writ­ers is depres­sion.) Anoth­er writer I knew found her­self com­plete­ly blocked. Why? She was using the death of her broth­er as the basis of a nov­el. She just could not write the book. Too difficult.

At the moment I am work­ing on a book that deals with war, a tru­ly hor­rif­ic event. I find myself back­ing away from its details, events, human destruc­tion. I hes­i­tate, and have to force myself for­ward. It is as unpleas­ant as writ­ing gets. I keep telling myself that if I can cap­ture the pain I will have a strong book. And I think it will be a good sto­ry. But, oh, it is hard!

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