Years ago, at a particularly
tough time, with finances off the rail and the demands of family over the top,
I wrote a short story, which became a 82,000 word book, about a women who disappeared, (willingly),
while leaving no clues behind as to where she went. I actually figured out a
way to head out of Dodge and make a new life, leaving my adored children and once
in a lifetime husband behind.
Writing the story was great therapy;
I was able to go without going. It was like writing a scathing letter to your
mother-in-law and then tearing it up. The
story was pretty good and the emotional dump was soulfully needed but I never did
anything with it. It’s buried somewhere in my computer. The book however, neatly
tucked into its manila folder, haunts me from the bottom shelf of a bookcase.
It reminds me of how despair can cook a novel that once seemed tasty but has
gone rancid over time.
My point is that, over the course of this thing I call writing, as a response to life’s travails, I’ve murdered my husband, sold out my parents, burned down a co-workers house and abandoned my children. Those stories were never saved anywhere. I live happily ever after at home with a husband of many, MANY, years and with children, on their own, but close to the nest. I am privileged and in a very good place. I wonder if writing happy stories makes you happier.
Do you write your angst away?