Otherways- Fiction Fanatics

Some days, there are no words. At least, there are no words that it would be safe to speak. Any syllable that passed your lips on a day such as that would be razor-edged, and flung to kill.

On those days, I drink a lot of tea. I swallow a lot of emotions, and I let the words flow onto paper. No doubt, they still are potent, still fatal if taken internally. In those sessions, I’ve written lines that make me doubt a host of things, my own sanity chief among them.

When you read a scene later, and you wonder if you are really a civilized creature at all, or if, more likely, there’s a madman lurking behind your eyes, it’s very tempting to hit delete. Erase the words, make it like they never even existed.

The problem is they did, and you know it.

The truth, I fear, is that none of us is truly civilized, not in our hearts. In our most secret core, we are no better than wounded beasts, raging at an uncaring moon.

I’m not convinced that this is an entirely bad thing.

Sure, if you let those impulses have free rein in the world, you’d end up fried like an egg in an electric chair, assuming you can find a place that still does that kind of thing. Rage is a valid emotion, though, and all emotions are power.

We’ve all read stories of people doing the improbable out of love, or fear, so the fact that powerful emotions can serve as fuel for action shouldn’t be a shock. For a writer, sometimes the only way to produce a novel that means something is through blood sacrifice. Before you go off in a fruitless hunt for a virgin or a black cat, I have to be straight with you: only your own blood will do.

Civilization is a veneer. It’s a thin veil that hangs between ourselves and others, shielding them from our darkest thoughts, and us from theirs. Without it, life in groups would become simply impossible. It comes at a cost, though, especially for an artist of any kind. We know that parts of ourselves are unacceptable, that they must be hidden from polite company, so we ruthlessly edit what we think, how we feel.

In life, this is probably best, at least it is for me. In art, it creates the blandest, most boring of works. It turns Guernica into a bowl full of daisies. Perhaps what you’ve written when the rage roared too loudly isn’t sunshine and pretty ponies, but it is real, and it is powerful.

Depending on where you want to use it, it might need to be smoothed a little, taken down a notch, or put in a context that fits it. You might need to correct your grammar, or improve your sentence structure, but otherwise, if possible, leave it alone. It has power, and you aren’t the only soul in the world that has a few demon roommates.

Well, unless you write children’s books. In that case you may need to look into another line of work.

Cheers,

Michelle