Drollerie Authors’ Blog Tour Post: Dangerous Writing

by Heather S. Ingemar

 

Writing is dangerous.

You may wonder how; after all, the act of writing is comprised of a person, usually sitting at a table or a computer, typing or scribing out the things in their head. What’s dangerous about that? It’s pretty hard to cause bodily harm from writing unless you stab your pencil into your eyeball or bang your head through your computer monitor, right?

Writing can be very dangerous.

By writing, you throw open the door into yourself, throw it wide, so everyone else can see in. You may not intend to – you’re writing fiction, after all – but parts of you creep into the things on your paper. It can’t be helped, and nor should it: those parts of you give your writing authenticity and life.

But it becomes a dangerous occupation when people don’t like what they read.

I’ve heard countless stories of backlash. Top romance and erotica authors losing their jobs because co-workers didn’t like what the writer pursued in her own personal time; horror and suspense authors watching their kids be isolated by their peers or expelled because school officials didn’t approve of daddy’s job. As an author looking on, it’s saddening, and especially frustrating when private deeds in private lives should be private.

Writing is risky. Writing is dangerous.

My creative writing professor gave a long lecture during a similar incident in class, about separating the writer from the work. And I agree – while we put pieces of ourselves into our work, we are not embodied in our work. There’s a big, big difference; but it’s hard to maintain when your name is plastered on the front cover.

Looking back on some of the things I’ve written, I squirm to think I might someday face repercussions for my words. My work is often bloody, violent, and sensual by turns. I don’t write watered-down fairytales – I go for the Grimm. I love the spooky.

But life is full of risks, and the paybacks – creative satisfaction – far outweigh the dangers.

PLEASE CHECK THE NEXT BLOG ON DROLLERIE PRESS’S WRITER TOUR WITH DAVID SKLAR AT . . .  

http://davidwriting.com/

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