Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Dear Journal - a look into the dark side

My NaBlo posts are in the form of letters to my journal about my revision process. Along the way, I'll include Home-Made Revision Workshop posts, and my Friday Challenges.


for pictures of our trip please go to my non-writing site - Living the Complicated Simple Life



Dear Journal,
Well, I'm truly drugged up to the gills but it will just be for a short time until this stops reacting to whatever it is reacting to (my back to the rest of me I mean).
I'm not writing, revising, or doing much of anything that requires much concentration. I won't take any drugs tonight (Tuesday) so that tomorrow (today!) I will be clear and bright for my clients. I'm seeing a few. Then just one or two the rest of the week. 
So...when we go there - to the dark side - what do we find? Sometimes I'm aware, in my writing, that it is an effort not to make everything turn out hunky dory for my protagonist. Even if I throw crap loads of meanness her way, I try to even out her karma-odds and make it all more up than down. I'm working with this - I think it comes out of my work as a psychotherapist. But even there, it isn't MY duty to make everyone cheer the heck up. I'm just to point out the options, find out what the person is after, and counsel them or have them analyse how they might do things differently.
Over the years, I have made a big effort not to translate their pain into 'learnings' and I'm sure glad I don't. Because, quite frankly, I don't much care what I've 'learned' over the past year. True dat. Maybe I will, in the golden glow of years down the line, but right now, all I know is that I'm still kicking, still wanting to get up at least one more time than I fall down, and still wanting to know how this translates to art - if it does!
I'll be back in the saddle by the weekend. In some way.
Later lovely dudes and dudettes. 
Here's a gratuitous photo.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jan - First, what a compelling 'photo! You raise an interesting question about taking characters through dark things. I think you've hit on something - the darkness happens, and they learn to cope with whatever it is. Things don't always work out just lovely again, but they move on. You don't get over such pain; you get through it and to the other side.

Faith Pray said...

I'm still getting used to this idea of giving pain to my characters. It's good, though, because how else would my plot move? Same as in life, I like to think. Those wretched seasons have made me who I am - stronger, I hope, wiser possibly, and deeper. Like those clouds in your picture! Gorgeous!

L.C. said...

I have the same problem--it's difficult for me to really throw my characters a tough ending. I'm like that with pretty much everything, though. Even if I'm watching a football game and the other team really screws up, I feel bad because I imagine how awful they feel, how low their heads will be hanging in the locker room. It's rather silly, I suppose . :-)