Write Through It

There are countless quotes about writing, hundreds of thousands of them since, obviously, writers write. And they write quotes. And they use quotes. Graham Greene wrote, in The End of the Affair, “Pain is easy to write. In pain we’re all happily individual. But what can one write about happiness?”

One of the main characters in the book I’m writing, is processing through something very painful, emotionally painful. And as hard as it is to write, it’s also easier to write than happiness, as Greene stated. What makes it more difficult in this particular instance, is that it is a male character, and it’s important to me to get it right, or as close to right as I possibly can. 

Hemingway said, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” While I am a much lighter writer than Hemingway, on a scale of one to ten, I am a one to his ten . . . I can still relate. 

I’ve said before that Doug teases me about sitting in front of the computer, laughing one minute and sobbing the next. If you’ve seen Something’s Gotta Give, with Diane Keaton, picture her writing the play . . . I look something like that when I’m writing, only not as cute. 

There isn’t anyone I know that hasn’t experienced some level of pain in their life. Many of us have faced unimaginable pain, pain we never should have had to experience, pain we wouldn’t have predicted we could live through, had we known it was coming.

Write what you know (pain included). Write through it. Use it. Whatever the emotion is. More quotes, or advice, about writing. 

Last week my closest female friend spent the week attending various funeral services for her son-in-law’s sister's husband, a former USAFA cadet (as is his wife), who was killed in Afghanistan. I’ve talked to her intermittently over the course of the last few days, but yesterday, she talked, in depth, about the various services. Just listening to her, I was sobbing. I cannot imagine living through it. From the casket arriving on the tarmac at Peterson Air Force Base to it being lowered into the ground at the Air Force Academy cemetery. So much pain. So much sadness. So much tragedy. I ache just thinking about it. 

But I will write through it, and everything else I feel and experience in life. Nothing to it, right? It’s just bleeding.