Comments on: How to improve your writing (and your love life)

By: nico

nico — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:56:41 +0000

Everyone knows it’s that old circular logic: I am unhappy not writing, so eventually, I write. I’m unhappy with what I’m writing, I edit it, work at it, I’m happy (briefly or not). Repeat.

By: jameshigham

jameshigham — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:24:19 +0000

I prefer rainy days.

By: xensen

xensen — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:21:23 +0000

If Forgas is right, sadism would avail you little because if you enjoyed your characrers’ suffering you writing would, well, suffer. Instead you would have to ache for them.

Personally, I reject the theory of the superiority of the suffering writer. But I haven’t done a study.

By: C.M. Mayo (Madam Mayo blog)

C.M. Mayo (Madam Mayo blog) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 02:27:59 +0000

I say one can be perfectly happy when writing— but to write any fiction worth reading, the characters must suffer. This is a sadistic enterprise, alas. Because if they’re not suffering, where’s the story? I (vaguely) recall a chapter title in a how-to-write book as “Make ‘Em Suffer.” I sign off as,

By: jameshigham

jameshigham — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:19:54 +0000

According to a study by diabolical psychologist Joe Forgas of the University of New South Wales, unhappy people make the best writers.

Stands to reason.