I write daily about politics, climate, and current events and much of that writing is driven by anger, frustration, and the desire to change things for the better. A lot of people, readers, share my concerns.
Our country, and the planet, are in a precarious state these days. I’ve chosen, as a writer, to be a witness to unfolding history.
It’s a ridiculously egotistic thing to take on.
But it offers me, and my readers, a little power to help us get through the barrage of news. I like to think a little righteous anger is better than antidepressants.
To clarify, I am not a journalist
I am a storyteller. Think about the power of story. Once, verbal storytelling was the only way people learned what was changing in the world, or at least in the neighboring village.
Even today, with our instantaneous access to global information, people still hunger for a well told story, a story that helps them sort out that flood of info. For now, in this section of my life as a writer, my job is to tell the stories I see as I sort through the news of the world.
But just as much, my writing helps me express my frustration and anger at injustice or pure self-serving ignorance. It is a form of therapy. And empowerment.
As you grow as a writer, you need to respect this power and nurture it. It is not only found in the kind of political stuff I write about. Novelists write about human experience, both personal and universal. I can read a fictional story about refugees escaping terrible things and find parallels in what could happen in my life.
That may sound sanctimonious but these days anyone could find themselves in desperate straights. Ask anyone in Gulf Coast Florida.
There will be stories told of their lives.
Unless you only write for yourself, an option that has value for many, you have a responsibility to write the truth, as you have experienced it. This means not recycling tired memes to try and make a buck or gather a following.
If you want those things you have two choices as a writer: fake it or speak truth to power. The latter is sustainable, the former will destroy you as a creator.
Whew, that was unexpected!
It’s been a ranty morning. I took yesterday off from writing and, as a result, I’m full of beans today. Good writing is passionate writing. That doesn’t necessarily mean having an attitude or writing rants. Sometimes anger is more powerful when its voice is calm and considered.
That calm highlights the power of anger when it is needed. I don’t know about you but reading or watching stories that are constant conflict is exhausting. It’s one of the reasons I don’t read Stephen King’s horror stories anymore. I think he is a great writer and a great teacher of writing, but his earlier and most famous works are bathed in unrelenting darkness.
They just wore me out.
I know that these glimpses into a dark mind are cathartic for many readers, a form of escape. And you can’t argue with the numbers. He has sold many millions of books. Yet I find his non-horror stories are better. His memoir, On Writing, is the gold standard for both learning about writing and the story of a life.
When you read it, you can see why his early stories, including his breakthrough novel Carrie, are so dark. The guy was the epitome of the starving artist, working crap jobs to support his family and somehow finding time to write and submit stories while enduring constant rejection.
Carrie was not an immediate hit. The hardcover edition was not a bestseller. But when the rights to the paperback edition were auctioned, the numbers were huge. And his life changed overnight.
The thing about King is that he is no longer an angry guy. But it took him a long time, an addiction to drugs and alcohol, and a terrible car accident that almost killed him to get to where he is today.
It’s quite a story. Anger got him to success, but he had to transcend it to survive.Â
Use it sparingly. It has the ability to give your voice power, but like the overuse of positivity, too much can chase readers away.
Writing this newsletter has been an interesting process. I don’t aspire to be a teacher of writing. I really don’t know how anyone can do that. I have an English degree but nothing about that experience taught me how to write. But it definitely introduced me to some writers I would have otherwise ignored.
I’m also not a big fan of writing MFA programs, though I admit there are some good writers that have come out of them. But those writers often fit into a pattern the publishing industry is comfortable with, so-called literary writers.
But if you look at sales figures, those are not the kind of writers that keep the business afloat. Escapism writing is what the vast majority of readers want. I’m ok with that, even though it is not really my thing.
I think we all need a little escapism these days. M
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