How Writing Makes You Feel

I’m sure that every writer has been asked the same thing by a non-writer: “Why would you want to spend the rest of your life doing homework?” Writing is as much work as it sounds. But just as we get rewards from other hard work: exercise, taking care of people, cleaning, repairing, we also get more out of writing than just a byline.

A good piece of writing will make a reader feel something. But all types of writing will make the writer feel something. Below I discuss the feelings that different types of writing makes a writer feel.

Fiction writing for a sense of control

Control is one of our most desirable feelings. It reduces our fear and stress, makes us feel powerful, and gets us to where we want to go. Control can be a hard thing to come by in the real world. But in the fiction world, we have the ultimate control.

We get to play God, conjuring up entire existences from the smallest detail to the largest landscape. We control the fates of our characters and transfer our singular ideas into a written form of telepathy that we get to share with our readers.

Fiction writing is hard to begin. It’s hard to find that spark of an idea and stick with it. But once you’re off the ground and running, it’s a place you find yourself wanting to return to. Because it’s a place to work out your frustrations, your conflicts, and your philosophies, to reimagine worlds, scenarios, and characters that you’ve dealt with in the past or hope to deal with in the future. You might not be able to control what happens next in your real life, but you have the ultimate control over what happens next in your fictional one.

Journaling for release

Journaling is probably the easiest and most desirable form of writing out there. There are no expectations or styles to adhere to. It’s simply for you to get down those thoughts that you have either shared with the world or are burying themselves in your brain and looking for a safe place to unleash.

Journaling clears your head and relaxes your mind. You can literally feel a change in your body after you have finished journaling. You can write as little, as much, and as often as you’d like.  It keeps you organized, helps you to see what occupies your subconscious, and gives you something to look back on with the option to never look at it again.

Essays to give yourself a voice

We all have opinions and real life stories that we want to tell in order to organize our thoughts and articulate what we’ve learned from life. But we don’t always have the opportunity to voice them. Essay writing gives you a voice. It gives your opinions value within the text.

With essay writing, you get to choose the topic and everything you want to say on that topic. It gives you power in the same way that fiction writing gives you power without the difficulty of coming up with a new idea. Instead, you’re selecting from an arsenal of already-lived experiences and pre-determined thoughts. Finding an audience for it is another story, but after writing it, you already feel heard.

Also check out my post: 15 Methods to Cure Writer’s Block

Correspondence writing for companionship

We have more access to people than ever before, yet we likely hear from people less because we put off corresponding with them until later. Corresponding through letters, text messages, or emails are similar to journaling in that you share your person thoughts but with the added bonus of sharing them with another person.

You may not feel comfortable divulging everything that you would in a journal or diary that no one is supposed to read. But it makes you feel less alone to write a long message to someone. It’s cathartic and staves off loneliness. The back and forth engages you, and the printed format nearly guarantees that you’ll get to share everything you want to say to that other person, whether it’s to tell stories, give or receive advice, or simply feel a connection to another person.

Reviewing, critiquing, and editing to feel useful

Many writers will tell you that an invaluable tool in their arsenal is having someone on hand to read and critique their work. A person’s willingness to take the time out to read, think on, and offer feedback gives a writer hope that their work will want to be read by others as well.

Reviewing, critiquing, and editing for someone else makes you feel useful. It’s easy to mark up someone else’s work. You have a critical and personalized perspective and point of view that doesn’t require you to have built something from scratch. You get to look at what’s there and tweak it so a point where it can be improved. There’s something fun in that and useful as well.

Assigned writing for discipline

Not all writing is voluntary. Even writers get assignments they don’t want, whether it’s for school or work. It’s a chore, and when you don’t like the topic or writing style, it’s as difficult as every other type of writing is to a non-writer.

But writing a required piece of writing provides a sense of discipline. Even if you have to BS your way through it, you learn special tips and tricks to help you over any type of writing hurdle. It pushes you outside of your comfort zone and maybe even shapes a new set of interests and ideas. It might also inspire you to try another piece of writing to cleanse your palette.

Blending art and writing to feel creative

Art journals are all the rage lately and for good reason. Art is fun and creative, and if you like both art and writing, you get to blend the two into a creative journal that also gives you the same release as regular journaling.

Art journals don’t have to be super artistic. The most popular art journals are more about design than skill. Art journalists blend paper, stickers, and calligraphy in a tightly-packed space that can be as simple or as detailed as they want with enough space to scribble down some thoughts, whether based on a theme or just as a daily record of thoughts and events.

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