Emotional Turmoil

Recently I attended a lecture about making time for your writing. For the most part, I agreed with everything the wonderful lecturer said until one part. She stated that writers thrive on emotions so when friend A calls us up to dish about her problems, we drop our writing to feed off her turmoil/excitement. (NOTE: This isn’t how she stated it, just my interpretation of her word—she was much more polite in her wording.) While I’m sure this isn’t evidence of a writer’s emotional vampirism or research for future books, I know that for me emotional turmoil stunts my creativity.
In a very big way.
I can’t connect to my characters when I’m experiencing an emotional surge of any kind. Most of the time, I lock my emotions in a tight mental box and let out only those which keep me on an even keel. This doling out allows me to access the box and unleash the emotions needed for a scene. There are exceptions—my husband and children being two most important ones—but for the most part my natural analytical and logical bent keeps them under control, manageable and available for study.
Wow, that sounds really cold.
Not so. It’s a natural result of having to protect who I really am in a world/society that demands I conform, submit, and subdue my natural personality. Internally, I refuse to do any of those things; outwardly, I can play the part to survive. Ask anyone who knows me casually. I’m the nice, quiet one, who keeps to herself. (Gee, now I sound like a serial killer.)
But survival comes with a price.
And occasionally a laugh—because of all the things I do to maintain inner peace—laughter is the most effective one. It is also the most contagious. Fortunately, I can laugh at myself just as well as I can laugh at others.
And once I can laugh again, I can write again.
Sometimes it just takes me longer to get there than others.

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