Writing when you're single, Part Two

The Writing When You're Single series continues... this one's a two-fer!

#2 Writing on date night, and writing with a broken heart

What about weekend nights—do you ever feel guilty for staying in to write if nothing else comes up?

For this one, first let’s debunk the idea of singlehood being a pathetic or less-than state of existence. I’m not a romance guru; I’ll refer you to one of my favorite dating bloggers at the moment: Natalie Lue with Baggage Reclaim can help you pull all that mess together. 

But, once you have embraced that your time is your own, you should spend it how you like therefore, and that you definitely don’t need to spend it constantly trying be out with a special someone on the weekends if you’re not interested in what’s going on one particular evening, nor fond of anything your friends are doing…
then, staying in and focusing on your favorite sexy alone-time activity as a single writer (okay, let’s be honest, second-favorite): you write your hands off, goddammit!

You write about your lazy, jaded jade dragon friend, that dancing betta fish who loves Shakira (how do you Shakira-dance with no hips, though??!), the novel chapter that’s just killing you because it won’t get off the ground. Maybe you even make progress. As long as you’re having a good time and enjoying yourself, then what’s the big deal if it’s not done perfectly well? I think it actually takes courage to embrace that you are a writer and need alone time in that way. Just like the first-place favorite sexy activity—don’t do you any good to go ‘round feelin’ ashamed, honey.

I tricked you; I said that last line more like a trucker. Did you hear it?

Do you ever write when your heart is broken?

Unfortunately, I and at least one other of my good girlfriends has told me that she has the same problem—sometimes I lose the will to write when something has gone really wrong romantically. Dating is so up and down anyways, though, so you have to be careful to “not feel like writing” whenever He doesn’t call, or He didn’t consider your feelings, or He moved on to someone else pretty quick, didn’t he? That’s a lot of “I can’t write today”, and for me, this can extend for weeks… 

It’s true that, sometimes, you can write someone you really hate into one of the projects on your laptop, let loose some hilarious misadventures on his ass and then feel vindicated. Once, long ago, I needed to deepen the character of the evil prince character in one of my fanfiction stories, and, all of a sudden, I realized that I did know what a manipulative arsehole behaved like, and just used those personality traits to make a charming, selfish and infuriatingly successful villain. Haha! (Not a hehe). Actually, more like another muahahahaha…

But, during those low times when dating, you’ve got to just take care of yourself, get over the issue as you can, and then, I recommend—once you don’t have too many immediately personal feelings tied into the situation which has become ancient history—then you can pull snatches of the guy’s personality or that guy’s or this girl’s, and then use that to craft a mean character, or better yet, a really complex and tender hateable or loveable character that you need in a certain story.

So, you know, you keep writing, you keep dating… eventually, you’ll get married, or become a badass single lady (SNGL4EVABITCH), or get published, or marry your publisher… what would a marriage to Tor Books be like? I dunno if their building could fit in the botanical garden rainforest greenhouse where I want the ceremony to be…

 

• Part One: How the hell do you write a good romance when you aren't dating?