Art and Depression: Don't Be a Jerk.

This is an odd thing to write about, but it is part of my process.  The long and short of it is, don't let the emotionally draining process of writing make you a jerk.

My novel puts me in a sensitive state sometimes, vulnerable for better or worse.  I have been stuck at a chapter that reminded me more than I expected of past events of my own life.  But because I am "writing to the end," there was no way around it.

To write this chapter I had to immerse myself in the pain of the characters, completely unguarded if I was to write anything of genuine substance.  I knew it would be the most difficult chapter of the book, but I wasn't prepared for exactly how crippling it would be and I ended up saying something I regretted to a friend when I was upset.

I felt paralyzed and numb between writing pages and pages of partial drafts and back stories and then finally the complete chapter (to its end).  I knew it was necessary – as Hemingway said, writing is easy, you just sit at the keyboard and bleed.  But going into such a vulnerable depression-like state can be like using some drug to write about the trip – you can't know exactly what will happen.

When hurt, you become self-centered, and it's difficult or impossible to be sensitive to others, and that's what happened to me.  And real life is something you can't rewrite.  Artwork and writing are meant to enhance quality of life, not detract from it.

Many great artists have suffered from depression, but no art is worth the damage done by its unchecked effects.  Hemingway, who said that thing about bleeding that I mentioned above, ended up taking his own life.  As have other talented writers, such as Hunter S. Thompson and more recently David Foster Wallace.  Pain is a necessary part of life, and it's necessary to create any informed work of art, but that doesn't mean it should consume your life, and part of the artistic process is keeping that in check.

I did need to suffer through this chapter, but in the future I have to examine my process and keep working on this aspect of writing.

PS
I googled "barstool writing," yes in a vain attempt to see if my blog surfaced, and I found that I did not coin that term.  Not that it matters, but I thought I had.