Is The Blues Your Writing Partner?

You asked; here's my best answer — for now.

Last week, I asked if y’all had questions for me and, wow, you have given me plenty to work with. I decided to start with this question from Ginny because it’s rough out here, and writers and readers alike are going through it! Feel free to post new questions in the comments below; I’m keeping an eye on them and collecting questions for future newsletters.

Ginny asked, “Do you feel better after writing sad things? I’ve been avoiding writing recently because all I want to write about is sad things and it takes so much out of me.”

It’s been some time — and I mean, years — since I’ve written something that emotionally drained me. Early in my career as a writer, I thought that kind of costly writing was the most artful or serious. I thought my work was only “real” when it hurt to create it. But now, years later, I think that kind of relationship to writing is unsustainable. I want to write for the rest of my life, not just for the next few years. For me, that has meant changing my relationship to the work, even if the subject matter and themes I examine continue to be quite fraught or emotional.

Generally speaking, I don’t find writing to be therapeutic. I often say — because this comes up a lot at book events during the Q&A — that writing is writing and therapy is therapy. So, if by  “feel better” you mean something like “I had the blues when I sat down to write and now that I’ve finished this draft, I don’t have the blues anymore,” then the answer is usually no. But if you mean “better” as in “I was distraught or bereft or full of rage before writing and now that I’ve finished this draft, I have a better understanding of what I feel and why,” then the answer is yes.

If I write about something sad or infuriating — here’s looking at you, Dave Chappelle — it’s because I want and need to make sense of what the hell is going on. Why am I sad? Why am I angry? Why are we doing what we’re doing? Those questions drive much of my writing and I’m often surprised at where they lead me. When I’ve finished writing a piece, yes, I feel better in the sense that I feel more clear. I didn’t have a map before, so I made one for myself and, while the journey ahead of me is arduous, at least I have a clearer sense of what’s ahead. That’s what “better” usually feels like for me — and having that as a target has helped keep the writing from feeling like it’s draining me.

So while I don’t expect the writing to make me feel better, there are still rare times when I realize it has. In late January of this year, an editor at The Cut reached out and asked if I could write a short essay about the future of friendship “after” the pandemic. (We all know that it will be some time before our country earns anything akin to an “after.”) January of this year was hell for me. This was pre-vaccine, the height of our terrible pandemic winter. My depression almost killed me. Real talk. But I am so grateful that this editor reached out when she did because, desperate as I was, I latched onto the assignment like it was a life raft. I used the essay as an opportunity to meditate on all the wonderful and specific ways I’d be able to spend time with friends as soon as I was vaccinated. You can read it here.

And I’ve gotta tell you, Ginny, writing that essay felt like pulling hope out of thin air and breathing it in. As it happens, I got my first vaccination shot just a few weeks after the essay was published in mid-March, and I know that the process of imagining that future had kept me going. 

Writing doesn’t always have that effect; a bit of clarity is usually the best I can hope for. But if you’re in a difficult personal space and still want to write, this might be an approach you can draw on.  You could try writing an essay (or a short story) that imagines a delightful, joyous moment for yourself in the future. Call forth the details of what you want and need in order to thrive. Let the joy you imagine and document pull you forward.