Anyone who has read even a few letters to the editor in the newspaper knows that anger can stimulate the flow of written words. A touch of outrage is powerful energy that can motivate one to march, fight and write.
Can anger also stop you from writing?
My experience tells me it can. After all, most of us were forced to produce writing against our will during our education. We often did it only to avoid potential bad consequences, not from love of the assignment. If the instructor asking (or demanding) that we write was someone we did not respect or like (a jerk), there was even more resentment toovercome during the process of producing the work.
Conditioned associations from school days between anger and writing haunt our heads even decades later as we attempt to write. The impulse to rebel against writing, as if it is a type of oppression, may arise – even if our current project is one we voluntarily chose.
If this sounds familiar to you, it may help to express your feelings by marching down your street holding a protest sign that says: “No one tells me what to do! Not even myself!”
