When I am sad or heartbroken, the positive thing that I can usually take from it is poetry or short stories or journal entries. When I am happy, my creative writing blows. Never really written about puppies or sunsets – not well, anyway.
The past several years have been mostly a happy time for me. Is that why I haven’t been writing? Quite possibly. But at the beginning of the year, I made a renewed commitment to myself to keep going, keep writing. Even if it sucks. It’s something. Writing about rainbows is better than not writing at all, I suppose.
One of my techniques has been to play “pretend” – since I’m not really heartbroken, how would I feel if I were? At times, I listen to your stories, my friends and family, and I put myself in your corner of the room and I write from there.
In a couple of weeks I start a new journey as a novelist. So please, keep telling me your stories – I need the drama, I need the gossip, I need the material! And if my writing seems melancholy, don’t worry. After all, it’s only fiction.