Excerpt 10 : Emotional Excess & Writing

From Anais Nin on why we need emotional excess in writing & creativity :

You must not fear, hold back, count or be a miser with your thoughts and feelings. It is also true that creation comes from an overflow, so you have to learn to intake, to imbibe, to nourish yourself and not be afraid of fullness. The fullness is like a tidal wave which then carries you, sweeps you into experience and into writing. Permit yourself to flow and overflow, allow for the rise in temperature, all the expansions and intensifications. Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terrors, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them. If it seems to you that I move in a world of certitudes, you, par contre, must benefit from the great privilege of youth, which is that you move in a world of mysteries. But both must be ruled by faith.

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“If you do not breathe through writing,
if you do not cry out in writing,
or sing in writing, then don't write,
because our culture has no use for it.”
Anaïs Nin

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What I actually learned from these strong-willed female writers like Ruth Ozeki, Susan Sontag and Anais Nin wasn't their writings or stories, but their little reminders on how we shouldn't fight our inner-self and expressions in writings even if we are exposing it to the world. To not be afraid of being fragile, judgements and letting ourselves drown in endless emotions for being a woman.

But there are a huge difference in whining and properly expressing your emotions, this, is a skill I need to master. If I keep on whining for public read, I'll detain myself from writing as a punishment.

This is an example of a beautifully written self-expression.