"CathyTea;14987966" wrote:
Let's see.... since this is a Writers' kindness bench, I'm wondering if we could shift to looking at how these kinds of interpersonal dynamics might relate to our writing....
Here's a question for everyone!
How have you taken an interpersonal conflict, complaint, or disharmony and used it in your writing?
What was that experience like for you? Did it help you to come to new understanding?
Great question, @CathyTea. I have personally had a rocky relationship with both my parents at one point or another. I've written about this in retrospect in a way through Kass and then through my Simself (though I haven't published much of this story but there are definitely things that will happen later). I've achieved healing and peace to a point in both relationships with my parents and I hope to eventually convey that through my writing. Kass is at a pretty dark period in her life, but I want to eventually share hope on the horizon and help her find healing, closure, redemption, peace, and rest.
Conflict is part of life. For most people, it is hard to be in the darkness and not yearn to be in the light. For me, I feel like I can't be in too much light or too much dark. Too much light burns the heart and soul. Too much darkness cools and hardens the heart and soul.
We have to go through the darkness to appreciate the light. We have to go through the darkness to understand the light. We can't understand one without the other. They aren't divorced from each other - they balance one another. Too much light and too much dark makes for a dull plot, but also a dull life. The dark periods of life are what sharpen us, strengthen us, and help us to be the best versions of ourselves. There is beauty in both places. We have only to look.
This is the approach I take to writing. I like writing about broken, flawed characters and dark, depressing scenes because this is where things get real. Sometimes I think I worry I deter people because I write about heavy topics in the Sims (a fairly lighthearted world for the most part at least in the base game), but I've decided this is my true style and it's not meant for everyone. Some people are meant to write about lighthearted moments and happiness, joy, pleasure, relaxation, and peace. Some people are meant to write about darker things like pain, tragedy, shame, guilt, depression, angst, anger, anxiety, etc. Some people find a balance of both.
I like to physically sit in the darkness and listen to my inner writing voice sometimes before I begin. The darkness helps me focus. The darkness helps me fine tune and hone my voice and my other senses. In the darkness, our true selves are revealed.
I like writing from here because I was there once in a dark place. I want to be that lone candle in the dark. Because I've been there, I try to offer hope and peace to those who are still there and remind them to never, ever give up on themselves. I pray even in the dark night of the soul, there is still a flicker of hope (like in my last chapter I posted for Kass
because this is what helps us to carry on.
