Emotions: Courtesy of Billy Joel

All right, so how many friggin' times am I going to point you over to the Genius that is Mark Terry? Really . . . will you just take my word for it? He has a blog series over there that is required reading. First, you can check his older blogs for a FANTASTIC series on freelancing for a living. And now he has one on what makes a "good" writer. And today he kind of called me out to blog on creating emotions.

You see, there are a couple of guys I know that I routinely ask about their wonderful writing, "Where's the emotional core?" when I critique, or something along those lines. Now . . . look . . . I cry at this. I cry at Kodak commercials. I cry when Oldest Daughter plays the violin. I cried the first time I heard her sing in public and realized, Holy crap, my kid could be a violinist OR a singer. How can one person have that much talent? And while I'm at it, How can I be so blessed? I cry when Demon Baby's eyelids flutter and he sighs or smiles in sleep, knowing he is having a good dream and I have the gift of watching that cross his perfect face. Yesterday, I cried over my less-than-three-hours-old Demon-Baby-destroyed brand-new vacuum cleaner. But really, crying over a Eureka? Yeah. I can do that. So if I am a muddled mess of crying tears of joy and tears of mourning (over a vacuum, no less), is it any wonder some of it ends up on the page? Oh, there's laughter too. And JOY! Lots of that. Happy tears, sad tears. Swelling heart. It's all cliched but true.

So here is the bookend to a scene in Magickeepers. In the scene, the young hero meets the oldest member of the clan (at least 100 years old). When he is shown into her room, she is staring out the window, lost in her thoughts, staring at snowflakes falling. Finally, she acknowledges him and explains her silence:

“I like to sit here and remember. I miss the snow. I miss how it smelled just before a snow, the sky as white as cotton. I miss my girlhood home. This is all,” she waved a hand, “designed to re-create my home, but I cannot re-create my family. I cannot recapture my girlhood. I am old, Koyla. But I like to look at snow.”

After a long and sad conversation, he leaves. And these are the final lines of the chapter.

He nodded and walked to the door. He started to say good-bye but he could see she was already lost in the snows of her childhood, gazing out the window and remembering her family.

With all emotion, I think I try to create bookends. Feelings that call upon other feelings. I believe that every emotion comes with it a tangled mass of other emotions, tied together by the story of our lives. Why do I cry at Kodak commercials? Because it's not the commercial, it's the damn grandpa. And even if I don't "think" of my grandfather, long lost to me, that emotion is instantly recalled but jumbled and distorted by the clever marketing of Kodak.

S0 I think, if I was to, as Mark wrote, say, "This is Part I," I would say no emotion anywhere in a book is in isolation. We are each to call upon the well of the reader's past and our own. So with that said, I leave you with perhaps one of my favorite songs. Ever. It makes me cry. Of course, it does. It makes me cry because it is not THIS song, but all it stirs.

And So It Goes

In every heart there is a room
A sanctuary safe and strong
To heal the wounds from lovers past
Until a new one comes along

I spoke to you in cautious tones
You answered me with no pretense
And still I feel I said too much
My silence is my self defense

And every time I've held a rose
It seems I only felt the thorns
And so it goes, and so it goes
And so will you soon I suppose

But if my silence made you leave
Then that would be my worst mistake
So I will share this room with you
And you can have this heart to break

And this is why my eyes are closed
It's just as well for all I've seen
And so it goes, and so it goes
And you're the only one who knows

So I would choose to be with you
That's if the choice were mine to make
But you can make decisions too
And you can have this heart to break

And so it goes, and so it goes
And you're the only one who knows.

Creating emotion is about calling on heartbreak every person has.

And so it goes.

Thoughts?