This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Another week of Writer's Tuesday and our column by Emily Tootsweet, who also has a facebook page if you want to friend her!
When I’m writing my novels I find that my mood often affects my writing. I’m not sure if any other writers do this but for me I feel I put a lot more into the scenes I’m writing when I’m emotionally on the same level as my characters. Even if this means writing scenes out of sequence. If I feel sad, I write the sad scenes – I feel linked to the characters, I feel whatever pain they are going through and I remember when I wrote the now defunct first novel, I often found myself crying along when the characters were crying too.
Of course I prefer when I’m in a happier mood because that’s when I can write the happier scenes and the funny ones too. I often write them after a particularly good night out with the girls or something happened at work that made me giggle (not that that happens all that often!lol)
I know that this means I often write my novels out of sequence and it’s a case of joining all the scenes together like a jigsaw afterwards but it works for me. I feel it makes my scenes stronger because I’ve put so much personal emotion in to it. I’ve noticed I’ve done that for Novel 2 so far as well. And it’s not a case of my novels being autobiographical. I made a conscience decision to make Novel 2 as far from reality as possible, unlike the defunct first novel.
When I write I put on some instrumental music and get on with it. If it’s a sad song, it helps make me feel melancholy and I write the sad scenes. And the opposite for any upbeat music.
When I was writing the defunct first novel, I found the ideal music to listen to. The Da Vinci Code soundtrack. I liked the film and the book and the soundtrack seemed to fit my novel just as much as it fitted the film. Even hearing that CD now makes me think back to my first novel. It’s strange how you can link certain songs and pieces of music to things that you’ve done or things that have happened in the past.
At the moment I’m feeling really sad (due to reasons I can’t go into) so I would normally write some of my sad scenes but writing is the last thing I want to do just now. That’s the danger when you focus your emotions onto your writing – when you feel sad, you have to push yourself to write because if something’s bringing you down, writing is the often the last thing you want to do. Again, it’s all about getting the balance right.
Yours,
Emily Tootsweet