Your Writing Mood
Mar. 1st, 2014 07:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sarillia posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
write_awayHow does your mood affect your writing? And do you have any methods to get into the mood that makes you most productive?
I always look back on 2010 with a bit of wistful nostalgia because of how much writing I was doing and how much I liked what I wrote. But that's the only part of that year I'm nostalgic for. I was in a really bad place. For a while I thought that I could only be that prolific when I was trying to escape from my crappy life for hours at a time.
Then I remembered how I seem to write best and most productively when I'm in a good mood. Which didn't seem very compatible with my original idea.
Now I'm even more sure that it wasn't my depression that fueled my work because I realized something that made me facepalm when I thought about how I had overlooked it: the time right after that most prolific period of mine was when I picked up other hobbies. I started knitting and started turning into a film buff who watched movies all day. That took up a lot of time that used to go to writing, so of course I didn't get as much writing done.
Now I'm just rambling. But I think I have it figured out.
I still think that element of escapism is there. It helps to want to "live" in the world of my story more than my own life for a little while. So sometimes being depressed might help. But once I start writing, I work best when I'm feeling light and enthusiastic. Or sometimes it helps to be in the same mood as my main character. Seems like it would be difficult to write a death scene while in my bubbly, head-bopping-along-to-fun-music mood. Speaking of music, that sometimes helps put me in the right mood.
So have any of you thought about this at all?
I always look back on 2010 with a bit of wistful nostalgia because of how much writing I was doing and how much I liked what I wrote. But that's the only part of that year I'm nostalgic for. I was in a really bad place. For a while I thought that I could only be that prolific when I was trying to escape from my crappy life for hours at a time.
Then I remembered how I seem to write best and most productively when I'm in a good mood. Which didn't seem very compatible with my original idea.
Now I'm even more sure that it wasn't my depression that fueled my work because I realized something that made me facepalm when I thought about how I had overlooked it: the time right after that most prolific period of mine was when I picked up other hobbies. I started knitting and started turning into a film buff who watched movies all day. That took up a lot of time that used to go to writing, so of course I didn't get as much writing done.
Now I'm just rambling. But I think I have it figured out.
I still think that element of escapism is there. It helps to want to "live" in the world of my story more than my own life for a little while. So sometimes being depressed might help. But once I start writing, I work best when I'm feeling light and enthusiastic. Or sometimes it helps to be in the same mood as my main character. Seems like it would be difficult to write a death scene while in my bubbly, head-bopping-along-to-fun-music mood. Speaking of music, that sometimes helps put me in the right mood.
So have any of you thought about this at all?
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Date: 2014-03-02 07:50 pm (UTC)There was a post on fandom secrets yesterday about feeling the urge to write when you're supposed to be doing something else (don't know if that was someone here or unrelated), and I've noticed that's absolutely the case for me. I always felt like writing in class, and now I notice that often if I do some work, I'll start to get into a writing mood. Getting my brain going, regardless of my mood, seems most important for me. But it's generally easier to get my brain going when I'm in a decent mood.