Writer’s Quote Wednesday

Writer’s Quote Wednesday is a weekly feature where I delve into famous writer’s words of wisdom and share how I have interpreted the meaning for my own creative endeavors to maybe help inspire yours!

 

I write best when I am either falling in love or falling apart

Rudy Francisco

Though it is true that it doesn’t matter what mood I’m in I write – never one to wait for muse to be inspired to go for it and see what happens/translates – I can still feel this statement ring true in many ways.

One of my more acclaimed poems actually came about in the moment of total nervous breakdown. It came weeping out of my soul, the tormented reflections of one who needed to pick them self up and inevitably try again yet felt on the very verge of giving up and in to the dismal damnation of clawing depression.

The very words Flesh and Blood seem to come from the very depths of my cracked hope – or else from the heavens urging me onward with the bittersweet battle-cry reminder that I am still Flesh and Blood.

There have been many times – in my experience – where I was having a fight with someone, or someone was blatantly ignoring me or my feelings even when I told them exactly what I needed – mind you I don’t play that passive aggressive game, I’m not about that shit, I’m very open about what makes tick/love/all of the above! – when I’m being bated into a fight, aggrieved at every turn, or mentally mindfucked, I sit myself down at my desk and I go to town. I punch it out, I put myself in the scene and fulfill my own damn needs!

There something cathartic about being on the brink of breakdown, alone and falling apart, when at your wits end and every one has counted you out, is avoiding you, is done with you etc, and sticking it to them through your pen!

Writers are nothing if not vengeful commentators…you know satirical shits? 😉

But then vice versa when on top of the world, when in love with life, with a person, a happy day or even just what you have to creatively come back to, its like a hit of adrenaline, a bump of cocaine, something about it makes you anticipate the moment when you can sit down and just produce.

I write best when I am either falling in love or falling apart.

Maybe the reasoning lies in the fact that though often times considered an introverted lifestyle, creatives are just big ol’ exhibitionists at heart. Maybe we don’t like looking people in the eye while we do it but we do love to tell our stories and share our passions brainchild.

So when we are in love the motivation to create gets revved because we have a person – our freakin’ person/people/place/part of the world etc – someone or something that makes us feel wanted and desired for every part of us, and what could be more apart of us then what fuels our life’s blood?

You want to create because finally there is someone to share it with who wants to listen, to partake, to engage with and reap the benefits of/for.

On the other hand, when that comes crumbling down we either need to exist somewhere else or at least have somewhere to channel the pain. We do tend to be – after all – deep feeling, deep thinking creatures who burn on the passionate flame of fevered expression.

We will shut ourselves away to deal with the pain, to engage souly in and as something else to remind our souls of our worth, and subjectively, catharticly bleed out all over the damn page instead of choking out the overwhelming plethora of emotions on someone or something that probably couldn’t handle it anyway – after all isn’t that why we are here to begin with?

And at the end of the day what generates a story or piece of art but drama? Even in cheesy rom-com’s or buddy comedy’s drama is what fuels the story. Conflict is what drives home a narrative. Its all always about the conflict and the resolution.

We find ourselves in something outside of our problem but whose influence is based well within. To quote yet another phrase:

Extremes are what we work in, we have to to be compelling, to be more then just a day in the life. We’ve got to immerse ourselves in that excess in the daily no matter our actual mood. We’ve got to feel deeply, describe the lowest of lows and highest of highs, we’ve got to at any given time call on these deep emotions and pivotal reactions in order to further our creative narratives. So when you have that extreme emotion naturally, right there, heart on sleeve it makes tapping into that descriptive power effortless!

I mean there are so many who actually thrive on the pits of tragedy in order to be inspired to work *cough – poets – cough* – I tease.

Because it can be hard to be so internally vulnerable all the time, to have to compromise your mentality in order to perform, and wear on your sleeve at any given time total and complete honesty in self, in observation, expression, and emotion at the cost sometimes of pride and personal opinion. Some can turn it on and off like a facet, others need to be more method about it, immersing themselves in the surroundings, the feelings the sight, and the sound of their story in order to convey the right amount of emotion. In order to have it resonate with onlookers. There is no one size fits all way to do this, but do it a creative must.

To be able to be vulnerable and receptive instead of just trying to pantomime emotion is a necessity. To be able to invoke its expression within, through your very senses as the vessel of its varying and inexhaustible extents, is imperative to authentically compelling storytelling. Writing not just what you perceive but what touches upon the raw essence of universal truth. And that truth lies in the heart and its reactions to the extremes. To falling in love and falling apart.

That invocation is the key to great art!