Leiden, NL
Why do we write? Why do we create? Among the many answers we could give there is to Feel. When we write, magic really happens. Indeed, writing is the ability to transmit a feeling through words. While painters use colours and shapes, we use words.
Writers, unlike painters, are not entirely creative, but are more logical. Writing represents a balance between creativity and logic. Hear me out: painters can use colours and shapes as they like. These can recall something real, or can be completely disentangled from our world's perception. Colours are creativity at 100%, because they are just colours: they are nothing physical, and you can also mix them. But writers, they use words, and here is where it gets more complicated. Words are logical tools used to make our world intelligible: each word contains a meaning, each word is a label. Hence, this aspect restrains creativity, which goes beyond labels. But words are like cages, which they carry their meaning inside: you cannot change them or transform them.
Here it is an example: painters can draw a line with whatever colour they like, and say "that is a man"... and it is actually intelligible to the audience, which can then grasp the meaning entailed. However, while we write we cannot say "line" instead of man, we cannot say "sea" instead of house. This is because within the word line there is the "line" meaning, and within the word sea there is the "sea" meaning, there is not the house one. Here you can see that the phonetic sound is strictly connected with the meaning, while colours/shapes are not. This is one of the reasons why you can look at art galleries all around the world and grasp the message of each paintings, while you cannot understand a book written in a different language. This is because words need meanings to be words, but colours/shapes do not need meanings to be colours/shapes.
The writer's job is to reconcile logic and creativity in order to transmit a feeling. We are like witches struggling with a cauldron, trying to transform herbs into potions.
There are some stratagems that facilitate us in choosing the right words and expressions in order to be able to put our feelings on paper, so that our readers can also perceive them. This is one of my dearest friend: music. Let yourself be carried away by the sounds that speak to you the most. When I have to write an emotionally powerful scene, I usually put my headphones on and I start to listen those songs that give me that kind of vibes. My body then becomes a conductor: it receives sounds, which create vibrations and energies so that they are transmuted inro feelings, which in turn send an input to the fingers to start moving, start typing. And they will, thus transmitting my perceptions on paper. If you can see, the mind does not have a role in all of this. When it comes to feelings, it is your heart you must listen. In this way, the words you will choose are a natural expression of what you are intensely feeling. They do not pass through the mind, are not carefully thought or processed: so in a way they are less labeled. They become more connected to the source (your soul).
If you do not feel inspired or do not know how to approach some specific highly emotional scenes, try to listen to music. The sounds will then create the magic you need. But remember: do not only listen! Feel. Once you become one thing with the music, the musical notes will flow through your veins and your body will amplify the melody like a sound box, which will resonate between the pages like an eternal echo.
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