Writers are supposed to use their pain to fuel their writing. Looking back over the FridayFlash pieces of recent weeks, it's no real surprise that they are dark, depressing and uncomfortable.
As if the onset of SAD and Christmas weren't enough to suffocate my spirits, this hernia is a constant source of pain. If I can make it through the next few weeks, I'm going to try to get the surgery scheduled for early January.
The pain got old weeks ago. Whatever nobility there was to be had in suffering has been swamped in 120 proof suckitude.
writing pain is a live issue among writers right now.
ReplyDeleteThere is a difficult line to tread between writing your pain in a way that the reader can empathise with, without it being either too personal to the writer or too indulgent. We don't know what our readers' own experience of pain is.
Can one 'predict' the reader's own subjective pain in order for your writing to try and tap into that?
Big questions.
marc nash
Marc: I agree, that's the hard part. If I just give voice to my own pain, physical and emotional, without having anything the reader can be swept up in, then that's not fiction. It's just therapy.
ReplyDeleteStepping out of yourself to say, "What would connect with the reader? What would she care about?" requires placing some distance between yourself and your own work. Unfortunately, that's harder to do when you're in pain. Catch-22, sadly.