Anyone who has ever picked up a pen or dabbled on a keyboard must read this post. You may, as I often do, think of the act of writing and reading your own work as entertaining or interesting. The thought that writing has a healing aspect to it may not be something you readily recognize. However, after reading Eric's post, I believe you may look at your own writing in a whole new light. So, how does writing heal? Read on!
Welcome Eric Trant, author of the thriller Wink, and a post on "How Writing Heals".
Perhaps you've heard this before, that writing heals. I don't know if you believe that or not and it really does not matter what you believe. Fire is hot whether you believe it or not. Writing heals whether you believe it or not. So I am not going to try to convince you that writing heals, but instead I am going to make that a prior assumption and focus on how writing heals.
Here's the deal: when you write about something, and I mean write about it and think about it, then you are forcing yourself to delve into that topic in a way you would not and cannot otherwise delve. When you speak about something, the words get jumbled and your thoughts are mangled and there is this linear and one-way train of thought that does not allow you backtrack or sidetrack or review what you just said. Even when you stop and ponder what you just spoke, you think to yourself, That's not what I meant. You took it the wrong way. You don't understand what I'm saying.
Writing is not so forgiving. Writing is absolute. Especially with the computer, where it is so easy to backspace and recreate there is no excuse for writing something that is Not what I meant. So when you write, you mean what you write, and when you read it later, you are speaking to yourself through the written word and there is this flow of time that passes through you and you hear that voice from 1999, 2001, 2003, 2011, and so on. It speaks to you, and if you listen, you can hear the healing words.
You pick out anger and insecurities and improper beliefs. You hear wisdom that may surprise you. Some words may be prophetic, expressing events that occurred well after the words were written, events now lived and in the past and Holy Cow did I really write that!
I've always believed this, and I read things I've written over the years and I speak to myself across time both forward and back. A recent and powerful example is from Wink, where I investigated the loss of a child and touched on the topic of organ donation. After I had written a scene about the aftermath of the loss of a child, I lost my own child in real life. My eighteen month old son suffered a seizure and died in his mother's arms, otherwise healthy and happy and who the heck saw that one coming? Not me, and not my wife, and certainly not our two other children.
We donated his heart and liver and both kidneys. The heart recipient is a beautiful fifteen month old girl who lived to see her one-year birthday because of our son.
So I went back and read what I had written before that event, and I nailed it. I read and reread that scene, and if you read Wink you will probably think I wrote that scene after my loss. I assure you I did not. When I tell people I wrote it before we lost our son, they are shocked, and they look at me for a moment, processing that fact, and then they say, Really?
Yes, really.
So I spoke across time to myself, and despite the harsh nature of the scene I wrote, there is truth in it, and when Wink went to editorial, I told my editor to check that chapter for grammar and punctuation and I would change nothing else about it. That chapter heals me even through its crass tone, and the writing of it and the reading of it forced me to look deeply into the black eyes of that subject matter in a way that I never found in therapy or speaking to others verbally. I had to stare down the beast and bridle it and break it, and that heals you.
As writers, I want you to be aware of the healing properties of your work, and the impact they may have not only on you but on others. You will touch your readers in dark places and may shine a light on something they never considered. You may even discover something in yourself.
How has writing healed you?
Author Bio:
Eric W. Trant is a published author of several short stories and the novels Out of the Great Black Nothing and Wink from WiDo Publishing, out now! See more of Eric's work on his blog: http://
Eric is an advocate for organ donation and lost his 18mo son in May of 2012. Eric and his wife courageously donated their son’s heart, kidneys, and liver. The couple went on to begin a foundation to support organ donor families. Eric speaks openly about this emotional journey on his blog and the topic of organ donation is very close to his heart.
Find out more about the author by visiting him online:
Author website: www.EricTrant.com
Find out more about the author by visiting him online:
Author website: www.EricTrant.com
Author blog: http://diggingwiththeworms.
Author Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/eric.
Author Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/eric.
Wink: A moving, fast-paced and incredibly emotional story about love, friendship and transformation.
In this thriller set in a rural Gulf Coast town, Marty Jameson finds refuge in the attic from his mother's abusive rages. But only during the day. At night the attic holds terrors even beyond what he witnesses in his home. With a family made up of a psychotic mother, a drug-dealing father and a comatose older brother withering away in the spare bedroom, Marty feels trapped.
Next door, wheel-chair bound Sadie Marsh obsessively watches Marty's comings and goings from her bedroom window, despite her mother's warning about the evil in that house. Evil which appears to Sadie as huge black-winged creatures.Marty, emotionally torn by the violence and dysfunction in his family, is drawn to Sadie and her kindly mother. But if he is to save his new friend from the supernatural horror threatening them all, Marty must transform himself from victim to hero. And to do so, he must first confront what lurks hidden in the shadows of his attic.
Wink is a thriller that captivates readers and leaves them longing for more. Trant is a talented author whose character descriptions go far beyond the physical.Paperback: 275 pages
Publisher: WiDo Publishing (April 16, 2013)
ASIN: B00CE4OP1K
So very true Eric. I wrote a scene about a year before a very similar event happened in our lives. It was spooky and every time I look at that scene it gives me a bit of a chill.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you didn't change the scene much - it's obvious you were meant to write it!
Wow. I cried just reading this post. I agree, that we heal when we write. When one of my sons was three years old, he burned his foot really bad on our ATV. He sustained 3rd degree burns and had to have a skin graph. It took a long time to heal, and the scar remains. But the scars on a mother's heart? Those never go away. We feel the guilt, we feel the "what if"? Several years later, I created a fictional character who went through a similar situation. It was tough to write about it, but it definitely was a form of therapy.
ReplyDeleteThis is so true. Writing is like therapy. And I truly hope it's just as healing for readers as myself. Even that healing only comes through escape.
ReplyDelete