The Five Stages of Writing Grief

My intention is not to make light of those who have suffered real loss from death or tragedy, but I’ve been in a writing funk for a while…almost two weeks and suddenly realized I’ve been going through the five stages of grief. I’m happy to say I’m in the acceptance stage, but for a while it was ugly, real ugly.

After an incredible weekend with Susan May Warren and some sound writing advice I began to realize I might have to ditch the WIP I’d been working on for 6 months. All 50,000 words. Now you need to understand something. 6 months and 50,000 is a huge chunk out of my writing life, and I was not about to give it up without a fight. I was in the SHOCK and DENIAL stage all weekend. I couldn’t think, let alone apply any of the great teaching to my current WIP which was technically dead to me at the moment.

After the excitement and the adrenaline of the weekend wore off I went through a mixture of ANGER and BARGAINING and DEPRESSION. I don’t remember the anger stage being strong, but depression was incapacitating at times! I couldn’t write or even read. What was the point! My story was dead, and I wasn’t about to try and read someone else’s story while I was grieving. Then came the bargaining. Maybe, just maybe I can salvage the WIP. So I tried writing my historical romance in first person. Only got 113 words written before depression set in again and I realized it was useless. If I turned my WIP into women’s fiction, it would be a totally different story with a different feel and plot. Which was okay, but something I didn’t have the energy to do. After all, I was still grieving.

So I started revisiting an old idea, close to my heart that I’ve been afraid to write. First, I reread the 7 pages, the only pages I’ve written and my heart was stirred. I felt new life coming back into my soul. So I read it again, and edited just a few lines and added a few more. Could I do this? Then I sent it out to some trustworthy friends for confirmation that I should be working on this story. All the results are still not in from said friends, but my heart is stirred and terrified! It’s the story of my heart, and I don’t know if I have the skill to do it justice. It’s nothing like I’ve ever written before, and I don’t even know where to begin. But I’m finally in the ACCEPTANCE stage and ready to move on. I’m ready to write again.

Where are you in your writing? Are you grieving? Sometimes if we identify the loss, it makes it easier to move on!