I wrote emote

I remember at a younger age reading and hearing about how the author J.K. Rowling had cried over the writing of several deaths within the Harry Potter series. Over the years I’ve heard a dozen or so similar stories to this from writers saying the likes of; it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to write, I didn’t think it would go that way but it had to happen, I loved that character and I loved them and I’m sad they couldn’t be together. In my cynicism and naivety I couldn’t understand such sentiments or simply believing them just to be cannon fodder for interviews or headlines. Now more than ever however I fully understand and appreciate such connections even though the writing is in your hands it can be outside your sphere of power or influence. It is only now with the constant frequency and pushing of my talents that I have come to understand such ideals and empathise with them.

I’m finding more than ever that, especially with this here blog, when I put pen to paper it is a central emotion driving the idea rather than just an idea or a focus or an opinion. So much so that I never fully know where a post as this is going. I set out with a structure and an idea, I ensure I have an ending in sight as any story is only as good as its ending. Rarely however does it go to plan or end up resembling anything close to my original intention. I’ve spoken before about the need to write in order to explore something for personal and at times selfish reasons. Often though I don’t disclose the reasoning behind it, nine times out of ten though it is the exploration of an emotion infused with an idea. Be the emotion happy or sad, heartfelt or angry it becomes the driving force just as much as the core idea and often trumping it. We are in a constant battle with our emotions and I don’t mean that negatively, it just simply is a constant conflict of each emotion trying to win one over the other. How can I go from feeling so happy and content to worried and alone? How can I be wanting to explore the life of a hero and be filled with as equal amounts joy and sadness? These are of course easily answerable but this is what I mean by conflict.

So even in the exploration of an emotion and an idea there are also the competing outside elements of life stresses, other conflicting emotions and ideas. It is incredible to think I used to think those components weren’t linked or wouldn’t have an effect on my work. That storytelling and art weren’t driven by emotions but generated purely and directly from the creators mind. Emotions that could lead you anywhere be it along a brighter or darker path. We as writers try to construct and control what we publish but we are not infallible to the world around us or our own personal ideals and emotions. When I began writing it was about creating and crafting rather than discovering and feeling and learning. When I look back over my earlier trials of penmanship they have a clear aim one that I was unwilling to detour from. Now I notice more of a flow a freedom to pull and buck and in turn discover unknown potentials, routes, ideas, thoughts. I feel as if I have more faith in the driver, the thing guiding the pen across the page outside of my muscles and sinews. My writing has evolved from the writing of a core idea to exploring an idea unafraid to allow my own emotions or wild thoughts dictate the direction of a piece. That may technically seem like a regression but it couldn’t be further from the opposite. I enjoy learning from my own writings, it may not always churn out exciting or entertaining affairs but for me it is always exciting, because just like you dear reader, I don’t exactly know when its going to end.