The Power of Writing Happiness
Can we improve our wellbeing by learning how to write happiness effectively? Will writing happy memories bring us as many insights as writing about difficulties? Test it for yourself!
Why Write Happiness?
“Happiness writes white” is a popular phrase among writers who teach writing. Its usefulness is explained by Salman Rushdie thus:
Without conflict it’s hard to have drama. One of the famous lines about literature [comes from] the French writer Henry de Montherlant [who] said about happiness, that it’s almost impossible to write about. He said, ‘happiness writes in white ink on a white page’—it doesn’t show up. If people are happy, there’s no story.1
A memoir, novel, or screenplay about a happy family (where the happiness is genuine, not wallpapered over dark secrets) isn’t going to grip the reader. Conflict is the engine of every story, and without it, we can’t create narrative drive.
But this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t focus on writing happiness. I can think of at least three good reasons to do so.
Contrast
Happiness is most explosive, vivid and heart-filling when set against its opposite. When a period of suicidal misery ends (as mine did) with unexpectedly falling in love, how vivid those first weeks are. Just the touch of skin means everything when it has been absent. Similarly, the shift into a broken home (through death or divorce) is more keenly felt when set against the bright memories of before. At the same time, very little is golden-then-dismal; there are usually fault lines you can, in retrospect, trace. But it is the contrast of our lives that makes them vivid.
Balance
Nothing is all bad. Indeed, as Shakespeare said, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so”. I can think of nothing less appealing than a ‘misery memoir’. Picking out the bright spots is vital for balance, and if we mean to publish, this will offer some gulps of oxygen to our readers. And let’s face it, ourselves. Writing about the tough stuff can be emotionally draining, and we don’t want it to subsume us. Which brings me to…
Wellbeing
We get more of what we focus on. So focusing on what we love about life and on good memories is something of an antidote if you find yourself writing about dark times. This is a matter of metaphysical awareness and good sense. Yes, writing about our dysfunctional or traumatic pasts can bring both insights and relief, but we don’t want to draw more of the same towards us.
I have experienced this more than once. When I was writing a thinly veiled version of myself in an unpublished novel, things I put my protagonist through began to happen to me. You know the film Stranger Than Fiction? It started to feel like I was playing both the Emma Thompson and Will Ferrell characters simultaneously. What my protagonist was going through wasn’t fun, and I decided I’d better turn her life around fast!
More recently, while I was writing about my abusive first marriage last year, several male acquaintances started trying to manipulate me into doing their bidding! These ‘echoes’ of my past reminded me yet again, to be mindful of my focus.
So it is good to ensure that when you are writing darkness, you also write about joyful things and ideally, instil a solid gratitude practice to keep your past in its place.
Polling Your Thoughts
Last week’s poll asked your chief reason for joining the Writing Home challenge. Thank you for your responses! I’ve noted the results. It helps me to know that nearly two-thirds of you (65%) are here for writing-related help. I’ll make sure you get plenty of what you’re after.
To the third of you here for insights/healing, let me just say you’re very important to me, and this comes with the territory! Put 11th Feb 6 pm GMT (noon CST) in your calendar to join me live for some EFT tapping. I’ll send the registration link to paid members via email.
Now to this week’s poll:
What Was Your Childhood Happiness Pattern?
“Home” isn’t only about childhood homes, of course, but this week, that will be our focus. Our early years are called our “formative years” for a reason, and by exploring them, we can get a better handle on what shaped us, and insights into our subsequent patterns. We’re writing about childhood happiness this week, and before we do, I’d love for you to participate in this poll.
Happiness Writing Inspiration
In the poetry workshops I’ve run over the years, I’ve often set a “happy poem” homework. Poets get very used to writing from unhappiness since poetry answers that ache very well. So, writing about happiness stretches our muscles, pushing us gently out of our comfort zone. For a recent model of a “current life” happiness poem, I might use Jack Underwood’s ‘Happiness’. Note how the final line carries a shadow of that contrast I mentioned above.
But the poem I have favoured as a model for two decades is this one by Thomas Lux.
Refridgerator, 1957
More like a vault -- you pull the handle out and on the shelves: not a lot, and what there is (a boiled potato in a bag, a chicken carcass under foil) looking dispirited, drained, mugged. This is not a place to go in hope or hunger. But, just to the right of the middle of the middle door shelf, on fire, a lit-from-within red, heart red, sexual red, wet neon red, shining red in their liquid, exotic, aloof, slumming in such company: a jar of maraschino cherries. Three-quarters full, fiery globes, like strippers at a church social. Maraschino cherries, maraschino, the only foreign word I knew. Not once did I see these cherries employed: not in a drink, nor on top of a glob of ice cream, or just pop one in your mouth. Not once. The same jar there through an entire childhood of dull dinners -- bald meat, pocked peas and, see above, boiled potatoes. Maybe they came over from the old country, family heirlooms, or were status symbols bought with a piece of the first paycheck from a sweatshop, which beat the pig farm in Bohemia, handed down from my grandparents to my parents to be someday mine, then my child's? They were beautiful and, if I never ate one, it was because I knew it might be missed or because I knew it would not be replaced and because you do not eat that which rips your heart with joy.
The sheer joyful exuberance of this poem! I love to read it aloud; it lifts me every time. Try it! And spot the contrast: that jar of cherries is alight with joy because of the dullness it is set against, “an entire / childhood of dull dinners -- bald meat, /
pocked peas and … boiled potatoes”, the “chicken carcass … looking drained, dispirited, mugged.” So what can we learn from this poem about how to go about writing happiness?
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