When the Sun Stops Shining
by Diane Penna
Here at Writer’s Remember we aim to provide information that inspires, uplifts, and encourages writers. There is no greater time to receive assurance of ourselves, and our writing, than when we are depressed, grieving, or otherwise hurting. With up to 70% of writers suffering from depressive disorders, it is important to keep the writing community aware of our propensity to pull into our shell, and provide realistic advice on how to pull ourselves back out and into our writing.
Writing this article happens to be timely for me. Over the last two weeks, I have lost my two precious cats. As any pet owner knows, animals are like babies. They love you unconditionally, provide companionship, and are cute as buttons! When a writer’s day is interspersed with time spent with those companions, it can get very lonely indeed when they are gone. When grieving, such as I have been, it is very tempting to just throw everything on the back burner and remain curled up in your bed and under your sheets, with the laptop collecting dust.
When you are down and in despair, there are a few things you can do to keep your pen flowing and your words reverberating in the minds of your readers.
Try a little perspective: My two cats are gone. However, I’m still surrounded by a loving husband and our two kids. Neither of us suffers from terminal illness, and we have a place to live and food to eat. I have always subscribed to the belief that “things can always be worse.” They really can! Remember that good always comes out of bad, no matter how thick the fog is in front of you. The sun will shine again.
Express your pain with your pen: Most brilliant writers I know write from their heart. When we are feeling especially emotional, vulnerable, or heartbroken, it is the perfect time to reach those inner hopes and fears and express them in our work. Writers I’ve talked to say they write better when they are a little depressed, and while this isn’t a good excuse to avoid treatment for serious mental disorders, it is an opportunity to take advantage of what lies inside of us all.
Stay vulnerable: The fastest way to kill your creativity is to shut your mind and heart down. When in physical or emotional pain, it is easy to shut everything else out and climb inside our little shell, sealing a wall of bricks behind us. However, what good does this do? Just as you must open yourself up to pain when falling in love, staying vulnerable will allow your creativity to flourish in the ebbs and flows of emotion. It is on these waves of thought and feeling that most of us have our greatest writing revelations, so keep out of your shell and stay vulnerable!
Share and receive support: Most importantly, the easiest way to remain committed to your writing when down is to tell others how you’re feeling. Post it to your blog – I did. Are you suffering from depression? Write an article about it for a local paper or magazine. Not only will you receive support from readers and other writers, but also you’ll feel better knowing that you are not alone in how and what you feel. You’d be very surprised how many others relate to the millions of different emotions we as humans can go through at any given time.
Each of us deals with sadness in different ways, with some of us burying it underneath our work or personal to-do lists. Often times it will dissolve there, and other times it will later resurface to be dealt with. If we continue with our writing projects, pushing ourselves to produce material despite our feelings of inadequacy or melancholy, we can remind our inner selves that we are more than capable of excelling at our darkest times. Therefore, when the sun shines again, we’ll have little excuse for not putting forth our best effort, creating masterpieces of blank paper and digital files.
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Diane Penna is a freelance writer and WAHM (work-at-home-mom). With two children, ages 3 and 6, she gets much of her inspiration from the day to day challenges of taking care of a home, earning money, and raising kids. She does all this while trying to maintain the identity of first and foremost being a woman and a born-to-be writer.
Writing self-help material that enlightens the life of women is Diane’s primary goal, while publishing a book filled with encouragement is her dream. She is passionate about family and parenting, life and living, and sees it as her destiny to help others through the written word.
Visit Diane at The Write Path and Crazy Mom’s Journal.
