Do It With Mourning: The Merits of Making a Mess

There comes a point where you quite simply have to let it all go. Let yourself fall a little. Let yourself fall a lot. Be afraid. Be terrified. Be ecstatic, joyful, and loving. Be angry and frustrated. I realize that initially, this may not sound like much of a plan for emotional well-being and soundness of mind, and it’s not. It can, however, be crucial, valuable advice for your writing.

Initially, I had other plans for this week’s blog. But I was more than willing to set aside a half-written column in exchange for this, which, to be honest, was borne out of one messy, emotional wreck of a week. I call it “interruption,” but on a three-hour drive this weekend, I realize that these kinds of interruptions – the messy, emotionally wrecking ones – are the best kind. Let me explain.

When we begin writing or even thinking about writing, we generally have some kind of direction – it can be a vague spark idea, or it can be something as concrete as the words spoken from one character to the next. When the writing starts, sometimes the narrative takes on an entirely new direction. This can be troubling. After all, you’ve spent all of your time thinking about X and then you end up with Y, right? Personally, I can’t count the amount of times I set out to write one thing and then, the second it starts turning toward another, I end up fighting it with every single part of me. It then turns into me versus the writing, which never ends well for either of us. So lately, I’ve taken to adopting a new method: embracing – and making – one hell of a mess.

This blog is a prime example: I had something else that I wanted to say, but my emotional rollercoaster of a week redirected me. So instead of fighting it and turning in something half-cooked and relatively lackluster, I’m making a mess. Of course, this is multifaceted. I don’t just mean accepting the diversions that occur while writing, or the new paths and opportunities found within stories. You should accept these things, yes. Trying something new or different than you initially planned can have some pretty surprising and exciting results.

But I’m suggesting you take it to the next level. Take that emotional craziness – the fury, the anger, the sadness, the mourning – and run with it. Let it take over. At the risk of sounding like an overly zealous self-help author or a psychologist with questionable ethics, let your feelings run wild. As a teenager, I let myself really feel things. I devoted pages in my notebooks to boys who would never look my way, boys who would never treat me right, and boys who enchanted me. I devoted pages to my sadness, my confusion, and my anger. It most certainly wasn’t art, but when I look back through the pages, I’m sort of overwhelmed by my capability to feel – and not only that, I realize that how many of us, as we get older and try to act like “adults,” we somehow take it to mean that it’s time to pack away those feelings, or to somehow lessen their intensity.

Joan Didion (patron saint of my life, for those of you who do not know) wrote an essay titled “On Keeping a Notebook,” which is a detailed exploration of reasons which one would keep a notebook. In it, she says, “We are brought up in the ethic that others, any others, all others, are by definition more interesting than ourselves; taught to be diffident, just this side of self-effacing…Only the very young and the very old may recount their dreams at breakfast, dwell upon self, interrupt with memories of beach picnics and favorite Liberty lawn dresses and the rainbow trout in a creek near Colorado Springs. The rest of us are expected, rightly, to affect absorption in other people’s favorite dresses, other people’s trout.”

I say it’s time to take back your damn trout. Look at that trout from every angle. Let the sun hit it and turn it a million shades into a blinding rainbow. Love every single second of it. Of course, not every feeling is exciting and thrilling to revel in (again, my hellish week comes to mind). But it is important – always, always important – to let yourself unravel, to let yourself go, to allow the full depth of the experience to hit you. Some people don’t understand why I’m so “pro-feeling.” Others call me a hippie. Regardless, I think it makes me a more well-rounded human being, and being a more well-rounded human being helps me to be a better writer.

So. How, exactly, does this apply to the writing process? For me personally, I revisit my notebooks – all of them – when I’m stuck or thinking about something I want to write. Rereading the entries, the blurbs, the scribbles, and the nonsense is sometimes uncomfortable, but it’s valuable. I’m sure there are psychological echoes here, but I don’t think that’s to be discounted – so much of writing is psychological, both within the writer self and the characters on the page. Whether you’re revisiting past feelings or going through a here-and-now emotional purgatory, you’re spending time with them. And when you spend time with those feelings, you’re going to start making sense of them. Bits and pieces will show themselves. The connections will appear.

By allowing myself to feel, I learn and relearn that things are not surface level. I am taught that all things have depth. And from there I wade in, and soon enough, I am swimming in my own mess, thrilled to know that I have the capacity to feel. And then, I write.