For me, writing will always be a deeply rewarding experience. I love to create my own interconnected world and I love to record my thoughts and experiences in some form. I think what the appeal of writing is (and the reason that a lot of people choose to write) is because it helps people to feel like they have some element of control over life. If you write fiction, then you have total control over your own little world and if you just write about reality, then you have full control as you contextualise and recount things that happen from your own perspective.
On this subject, something that I do whenever somebody I know dies, is write a story which features them still alive and well. You see, I may not be able to do anything to control sad things like this in reality, but one thing I do control is the world of my writing and in that world, the people I love will always continue to live on – it’s a small thing, but as irrational as it may sound, this comforts me in some way. I like to try and capture their voice and their quirks in my writing, because those are the kinds of things which I might otherwise forget over time – not that I always write these things instantly after somebody has died (sometimes I leave it quite a long time.)
But that’s just a small coping method which I wanted to share. In my mind, the world of my writing is very much a live and active thing and its a part (no matter how small) of the overall collective of all human writing – to connect personal losses to this, for me, is comforting. You can find an example of my having done this, here. I think that feeling of comfort and control (along with the joy of creation) is what drives a lot of writers to continue writing.
(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)
