Revisiting Emotions

The power of real

There’s something to be said about reading something that connects so intensely that you are moved to anger, sadness, joy, and any deep emotion. I’ve known to read something that makes me cry in public. I’ve also had the honor of having readers tell me they cried, laughed out loud, stopped eating, giggled, and raged at things they’ve found in my writing (particularly the end of my first novel, Only Human. I literally got cussed at by three readers #SorryNotSorry. Besides, when they read chapters 1-3 of Shadow of a Human, they wrote to apologize and say thank you).

Channeling those emotions can be done in several ways. I’ve often gone the route of revisiting events in my life when I need to channel a certain emotion. It’s like method acting but with pen and paper. Sometimes it’s even taking fragments from my life or those lines you wish you would have said and using it for something other than kicking yourself for not having shared it in the perfect moment.

As humans, we feel, we experience, and we remember. We remember how much a comment hurt when someone told us at eight years old that we did something wrong, that we sucked, or that they never wanted to talk to us again. We’ve all gone through some sort of heartbreak, and those emotions live on even if those events happened long ago. That kiss that left you smiling stupid when you were a teen. That person who was so selfish in the group project. The fear you felt when you were in a bad crash or saw one. The pit in your stomach that first time you get on a rollercoaster and take a big drop. All of those things continue to live within you.

Hindsight is also beautiful because it lets you relive those memories from long ago to understand them from a different perspective. That’s magical and often even cathartic. However, other times it can be a bit traumatic, so maybe it’s not for you.

But for me? I love understanding what I’ve lived. I will also admit at being an empath and quite emotional. So, those feels you sometimes read, I wear those on my sleeve, and I do so for a variety of reasons. But when it comes to writing, I tap into those emotions because I need to feel what my characters are feeling to live and experience emotions to best capture a scene or twist.

The human experience is so rich yet so often people dull it down and refuse to tap into what they’ve lived, focusing on the next great thing that will monopolize their attention. Other people can get stuck in the past. I’m advocating for neither. Instead, I am suggesting that paying attention can help you even pay tribute to your life and what you’ve lived.

In my work, I’ve touched on my childhood, my relationship to my family, the anger I feel about certain things, the lack of motivation, and all the “quirks” of my characters come from me or people I know. Sometimes it’s someone I know in depth and other times it’s a memory of someone I saw in a flight, at a restaurant, or who made an impression on me. I’m very fortunate to have a decent memory and remember the most random things.

Here are some examples on past emotions I’ve tapped into or will tap in the future.

Sadness.

If you know me, you know I keep the memory of Mom alive and well even if she passed away in 2019. The grief I still feel after losing her is there and very much alive. In short, I miss her every day. Leaning into that emotion not only allows me to understand it better, it allows me to pay tribute and honor Her memory and love. But that’s something people would expect me to tap for certain things in my work, namely scenes in the last book of the Human Cycle. So, let’s look into something much more random. One of the saddest things I’ve ever seen in my life that left an impression on me was a man in a gym. For a period of time, I had a friend who worked at a gym and I would visit him often to hang out and waffle about life, Mony Python, the Kids in the Hall, stand-up comedy, and plenty of other randomness. There was a guy who went regularly to the gym. Not an Adonis by any means, but someone who was putting in the work. To offer a brief description, he had black hair, a healthy black moustache, and was not obese, though if you guessed he wanted to lose weight, odds are you were right. One day I see him get on the scale and the level to which this man deflated when he saw his weight after the workout would break anyone’s heart. He had focused on the work and been consistent. But in that moment, when the scale didn’t read the number he wanted, his shoulders visibly sank, his eyes turned glassy, and from thirty feet away, I was able to hear and feel the quivering sigh he released. He then cleared his throat, stood straight, looked himself in the mirror, and left the gym. Whether he went to another gym or changed his regimen, I can’t say for sure. All I can say is that as a curious kid, I saw a man in a very vulnerable moment take a loss on the chin. This was over 30 years ago and it’s stuck with me.

Like this I can focus on joy.

Again, for a non-conventional approach, I can remember the soaring joy I’ve felt seeing a dog race a car, a horse, or a human, and how free they look as they tear across a field. It’s a joy that YOU’RE feeling. Maybe the dog too though you don’t speak dog, so you don’t know the level of joy. But it’s there. And you can ascribe that emotion to other things.

What about anger?

Well, turn on the news, wait a minute, and odds are something will fill you with rage, because that and fear are the best ingredients for ratings it seems. Still, emotions are all around and if you’re writing something where emotion and feelings play a big role, it would serve you to tap into your own experiences and understand them better and see how you can transfer that onto the page.

The main thing is to be honest with that emotion and what it means to you. Don’t get fancy. Capture the essence of what you’re feeling or what you felt. Where do you feel it in your body? What feelings and memories can’t you shake and how can your characters feel and experience the same? And then, let it go on the page and trust that if you do, others will feel what you felt and go from reading your book to living your story.

Peace, love, and maki rolls.

JD