2. Fiction & Feelings

     I started reading the "Seeing is Believing" article and my mind hopped onto a fast moving train. I completely agree with the very first paragraph. Feeling is essential. It's unhealthy, even dangerous not to feel. The line, "I dont feel anything is said in fear.." really meant a lot to me. I've never thought about how correct that statement really is. I know on a personal level how that is. I've said those words and I've asked questions like "What does that feel like again? Happiness?" and I've never said it in a confident or cocky way. I've always said it in a way that carried the fear, the distance, the sadness. Not feeling anything is scary. It's all very tricky. Not feeling anything is bad so you want to make sure you do. However, naturally we all feel afraid so we try to avoid feelings but in my opinion, everyone should know how impossible that is. Yet, we all still try which is very unhealthly.
     Additionally, it isn't just the bad feelings we run from, but also the good ones. I spent years running from bad feelings all because I had no idea how to approach and deal with them. It made it that much harder to actually do so because it seems like through the years, the weight of those bad feelings just got heavier and they just got stronger and eventually they would have consumed me, had I not dealt with them. I've never had experience with running from good feelings before. I think I'm in a stage now where I might be experiencing that so I can't comment much.
     I know I've experienced a range of emotions. Because of my past experiences, I know I've felt things that others have not and I know that others have felt things that I haven't for the same reason. However, I know that there are people I do share those uncommon feelings with -- those feelings that arise in special circumstances. Not only does it set you apart, but it also connects you with others. Being able to experience emotion is a powerful thing and everybody does it differently. Naturally, as humans, we don't just want to keep it to ourselves either. We want to share it with others. We do that by writing.
     I feel like the easiest way to do that is by writing fiction. I read the paragraph that incorporated all the five senses. The story was simply a person who walked into a shop and seeing that no one was around, stole some food. You get to experience the senses and with that, brings emotion. I agree that the biggest part of writing good fiction is making the reader feel. That creates a doorway to pull them to this made up world. That makes it so much easier to imagine and see this world in the readers mind. That's the way you get lost. That's the way you escape. I never realized that before. I never realized that was the reason why some stories took so much effort to escape into and others were effortless. For example, the stories I read for fun or even the ones that I write myself are so easy to escape into. I don't even try. I just open the book and I'm not where I used to be anymore. For other short stories that I mostly had to read in high school English class, I could never participate with ease. It took so much effort to read the story and to actually understand it. In English class, I couldn't feel anything that was going on. There were no feelings and the senses weren't teased. There was nothing to help pull me in. I had to force myself in and keep straining to stay in so I could understand.
     I am definitely going to consciously try and incorporate the five senses into my stories and try to evoke emotion more powerfully but not too much. I've never deliberatly done it before. That could possibly be the next step I have to take for figuring out my style of writing. Right now, I am at a stand-still with my writing and I knonw that I can do a lot better. I feel like right now, my writing is different but not what it could be. I hope putting more emotion provoking content into my writing will help me and I can start developing my writing styles and well as my writing skill.