Craftation in the Garden of Literary Delights

In the garden of earthly delights where beauty meets debauchery. That’s where we sit and discuss it all.

Craft without catharsis. Our protagonist thought long and hard about the prospect. I imagine them — or us, if you envision yourself as one of them — waiting like those in that play of waiting and existentialism. We’re always waiting, and even when waiting doesn’t explicitly carry emotion, it’s there. How do you remove the release necessary to create something others will connect with?

Imagine no one will ever read it, or imagine that something will read it without knowledge of emotion or empathy or any real desire to connect.

It takes skill and experience to create something. From where does experience come without the emotional release?

Listen to What’s Going On from a strategic position without emotion. Does it bite? Does it make you want to stand up when you remove the emotion?

Good sex is a skill, but so many people do it without emotional attachment and still get the physical release.

Fuck.

This journal is designed to represent something.

craft, the skill and experience with a focus on making

One issue is that emotions are performative and experiential. They have a place, but not as focal points when writing emotional art. Distancing helps.

Crying shouldn’t be the motivating force driving a sad scene. And you don’t need to act like a flamboyant nutter like Hannibal Lecter when describing terror. Look at the quiet, disturbing No Country for Old Men.

Dracula doesn’t need a love interest to humanise him.

He’s not fucking human — in all interpretations of that comment.

Fuck.

noun

uk /krɑːft/ us /kræft/

craft noun (SKILL)

plural crafts

skill and experience, especially in relation to making objects; a job or activity that needs skill and experience, or something produced using skill and experience:

I am protagonist. This is my call to remove the emotion from the crafting process.

Never get attached to your literary victims.

Are you outraged by the death of someone you’ve never met but hear about their death at the hands of the modern-day equivalent of the Gestapo?

catharsis

noun

uk /kəˈθɑː.sɪs/ us /kəˈθɑːr.sɪs/

plural catharses uk /kəˈθɑː.siːz/ us /kəˈθɑːr.siːz/

the process of releasing strong emotions through a particular activity or experience, such as writing or theatre, in a way that helps you to understand those emotions.

Never, as the protagonist or antagonist takes their place at the beginning of the story unfolding, had I ever decided to remove the heart.

Kiss a paving stone and imagine it a dead relative.

Listen to Something by The Beatles and not be turned toward a lover, a memory, a fragment of a lover.

Fuck.

Are you prone to tears when watching a romantic dalliance on the silver screen between the greats — La La Land?

Watch it blindfolded.

Tied to a chair.

While orifices drip by Stillwater. Ceremonial wine consumption a must — by slow dripping water or saliva or ceremonial wine.

Mia and Sebastian.

Tilt forward and press your chin to your breasts. If, like me, you are male, you will need to do something different.

You see, the problem with craft over catharsis is that you feel the pull toward feeling out loud. Bleeding the emotion. Telling it. Not showing it.

Imagine, if you will, stubbing your toe on the edge of a sofa without feeling anything in your foot. How do you know what’s felt?

We should always ask things of our writing, said one protagonist to another.

When you write controlled, without emoting every second word, sentence, or paragraph, you do something exceptional.

Something literary beyond literary.