Image from www.graphicshunt.com
I was reading another blog that has nothing to do with Wow – it’s a personal blog so I won’t link – but they said an interesting thing about writers making their own drama – effectively how we milk it for our writing, and that thought leads to maybe going out of our way to find Drama.
When I am really happy – Wow – raiding – life I don’t feel the need to write. Happiness is boring.
Where’s the struggle, the passion, the elitism, the finger pointing blame.
When I’m really upset at something I don’t feel the need to write about it either, sometimes because I feel it’s an extreme idea, and voicing it would make it worse, or I don’t know the full story and I have learned that raging at things when you should go to the source and ask for clarity because chinese whispers distorts facts – as we learned in kindergarten. ( ever do that.. sit in a circle whispering in each others ears a sentence to see how much it changes as it goes through each person) so I need to wait untill the rage becomes less blinding or confusing, and look at it logically, and work out how to approach it, and what is a big issue gets a label, and place to in my head.
I try to write the middle ground. If it’s a rage, so that the idea becomes presentable, and the argument is clear . I write to clarify a thought to ask questions and clear things up so at least I know where I stand on an issue – but drama is much more entertaining to read ( I read every single bad pug story!)
I have used experience in my creative writing – each of my two tattoos got a story written about them – An inspired crime /mystery short story about my tattooist which got published in a street mag, and the 2nd one was more factual recount in narrative 3rd person. A poem that paid my rent for a week as a poor uni student was about a character I met on the train. Bits of reality sneak into my fiction. However not forgetting the standard disclaimer.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental
I hated one of my writing teachers for telling me to ‘write what you know’ I might not like the idea, but I do think write better, writing what I know.
But using drama as inspiration well I didn’t realise how heavily I relied on Drama to Blog.
I had never had to think about it much, untill I considered going out of my way, to get in a GDKP on server that’s getting some criticism – just to see if they are really as big A holes and jerks as everyone claims they were – I was going to count how many people they kick and replace ( apparently happens often) So either way I was pretty much guaranted a drama and therefore an interesting story I could rave on about. But the observation about writers creating their own drama got me worried – had I really run out of things to write about that I had to go out if my way to find trouble – and reflecting on the last few posts on things that will no longer be relevant when cata is out – I fear I’m scrapping the barrel.
I don’t belive as a lunch companion said – “what is there to write about anymore?” I dismissed that thought at the time because my own internal motivation is very much dependant on me thinking that what I have to say is relevant and interesting
But It’s getting to the point where I don’t find ( some things) I write about interested and relevant – I think this post is very interesting and relevant in my current state of feeling irrelevant and uninteresting.
So I shall try to write less drama.
When I find that I’m writing a post primarily in response to drama, I try to reflect. Is there a positive helpful way to post this? For instance, I turned a very rant filled post about PUG Pet Peeves into inspiration for writing about how to troubleshoot tanking issues as a healer. (Still in process to be published.) I think there are ways to use drama as inspiration without it feeling like constant ranting.