Victims of Emotion

When we’re concerned about someone we ask, “How are you feeling?” I don’t think I’ve ever said to anyone, “How are you thinking?” Some scientists believe that thinking begins with emotion rather than with rational thought.

As a writer, I know all about how emotion affects what I can write. Yes, it controls what I write. I’m in the middle of a couple of big projects. I find it hard to write on the same topic for long periods of time, but I really want to get this book finished. Sometimes I just don’t feel it.

Like today. I’m sad because a friend is moving away. I’ve been fighting the depression that usually attends such things, and I have managed to whittle this down to a persistent sadness. Sadness often brings out superior writing, but it means that the happy piece I’m working on will have to wait.

Well, it’s not really a happy piece. It’s more of a funny piece. At least I hope it’s funny. My Medusa novel is funny. Laugh out loud funny. Nobody was moving away then, however. I wrote it when I was unemployed. There’s pathos there, and publishers just don’t like it, I guess.

I’m not the one to ask what publishers like. They didn’t like Mark Twain either. Until the books he paid to have published started to earn money. Suddenly he’s a genius.

Writing is all about emotion. The way a story makes you feel. I read things that leave me unsettled. That’s because life’s an unsettling experience. You have people who make you happy, but they move away. A writer’s life is a lonely life.

When a story or novel expresses great depths of emotion it is universally praised. Experts say you have to give readers what they want, because they won’t work for it. If your writing is too difficult, they won’t read it. Then again, I’ve read through books I found inaccessible. Somebody published them.

Sad songs, Elton John suggested, "say so much." People like to listen to them for catharsis. Why don’t they like to read sad stories?

I’m sitting here in the dark, thinking about my friend. I have a funny book well underway, but I know I won’t touch it today. And I also know that chances are no agent or publisher will ever touch it either.

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