Joys That Sting

"This is a certain maxim, that the more we are governed by wisdom, the less we shall be inflamed by passion."
The Religious Tradesman, Richard Steele

Anyone who knows me knows that I am an emotional person. I am rather thin where my skin touches spirit: as a result I feel things rather keenly, often extremely and violently. And, I suppose, that for a writer this is a good thing. In some cases this is not always a good trait, not always giving me a natural bent toward sensibleness, but as a writer it is a useful thing to be: emotional. It is so human of us to feel, to know that we are feeling, even to differentiate between our feelings. Rachel pointed this out, that as writers we have to be acquainted with an enormous spectrum of emotions, and to be proficient in writing them, or else our stories, our characters, fall flat - there is no life in them. As an owner of two cats, having grown up with cats almost my whole life, I know that even animals have range of emotion, if not the self-awareness to know they emote; if I fail to weave emotion into the heart-strings of my characters, they are even less believable than my kitty.

I like writing emotion, myself. Rachel quoted the line "I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions," and I love that, because that is exactly what I feel. Words: the audible, visible manifestations of the language of our souls. I find it a heady business, writing emotion, and feeling all those emotions themselves as I filter my characters out of my finger-tips. And Rachel in her post (do read it!) challenged her readers to write emotion, to not forget that, like any other person, characters exhibit emotion and that a reader will expect to find it. My current novel Plenilune is very emotional, but I thought that, given her challenge, I might pick out emotions and show you what I have done in various and sundry stories to display those feelings. I hope you are much amused, greatly diverted, possibly enlightened, maybe even inspired.

sullen

They did not mean to forget her, she told herself with a tell-tale viciousness. She pulled her knees up and gripped the hard thing that hung at her chest, hoping to find comfort in the good horse-magic. But there was a wind blowing wolf-wise, howling-wise, through the open doorway beyond which all was shifting darkness, and there was no warmth to be had even in the good horse-magic.
The Guttersnipe

anger

"Oh!" cried Margaret, bursting into heedless, furious tears. "Oh, you worthless, p-pitiless, filthy creature! I despise you! I d-d-despise you! I despise you!" Her raging words fell out into sobbing—furious, terrified sobbing. She crumpled into the bed-sheets and sobbed mingled tears and blood; with every hysterical gasp she smelled her own blood, tasted it, felt the cut agony of her own broken lip.
Plenilune

happiness

For a moment purely childish expressions ran across Miss Morgan's face as she stared at him and his hand, taking in his meaning. He hoped that James was not wrong, and that she did know how to dance after all. But then she seemed to compose herself and, with the perfect demure nod, she placed her hand in his. "I can think of nothing I would enjoy more, Mr. Godshall," she murmured.
Not Raymond

terror

Like a child in a nightmare, wanting someone to wake him. Paralyzed with fear and pain, Tamsin lay in his bed, covered in sweat, dragging in breath after ragged breath. He still hurt. His limbs were locked, his body did not answer him... Slowly, agonizingly, inch by inch the flesh responded to the will, tingling as if the valves were reopened and he were flushing blood back into the dead extremities. He clawed upward, dragging himself out of the horror of sleep. He sat upright, holding the moonlight in a pool in his lap. He stared at it, trying to sort reality from nightmare; and then an unreasoning fury rose up in him, against the house, against the painted barbarian, against the book and the captain and everything that was not Nim.
my 'Boxen'

sorrow

But she knew, as one might know a thing in a dream, that there would be no going home to his hall now. The grey, heavy face darkened with smoke and blood seemed to draw away from her; a whole world seemed to come between them, as though already he was in the halls of his fathers, sleeping, sleeping until the angels sounded the trumpets from the blue ramparts of heaven. She clenched her eyes shut and let the tears roll down her face onto his, streaking in the grime.
Adamantine

morose

That was the most difficult part. By nature he was of a quiet disposition, but he could not allow the captain to have the floor for long or else the man would have no time to drink. Entering the room, he glanced from the man's bulk to his sideboard, and winced. That was good brandy: he hated to waste it.
my 'Boxen' again
discomfort

Aidan checked, turning his hawk-nosed face over his shoulder, full in the firelight with a little sharing smile on his face, as if he thought the jest were funny too. But Tate was sure everyone in the hall knew that the jest was not funny to Aidan, and she felt the soft ripple of awkwardness run among them, as a little wind will run among the grasses of the downs.
I'm not sure what this story's name is.

mockery

But as he passed me, he stopped, and I knew then that he had never forgot I was standing there. His gaze met mine, lifted a little for I'm a big fairy, narrowed against the blowing rain. There was that laughter, flaming white, laughing at me out of his eyes.
The Duke

contentment

The fire was going down into a fitful heart of reddish gold, like a ruby caught in a candle. They all took the night in very deeply on their uninhabited rock on the edge of the empire; to Adamant, if felt as though she were lingering in that nowhere-place, that between-time: that place that was like the marshland, like the horizon where earth and sky touched, like the twilights of a day. She was cupped—they were all cupped—in a place that was on the brink of all places, in a time which was no time at all and was the central point upon the face of a clock itself.
Adamantine

fury

Master Lucius' pen stilled a moment. The moment lingered, hanging in the balance, the looks between the Lords of Eryri and Arfon and the young man tangible as the heat of the fire beside him. The hate was throat-catching. Young Epona's nostrils flared and the shadows flickered across her brow as her eyes widened a fraction. The hand on the sword-pommel slowly curled in on itself. Only Ambrosius did not change in his appearance. Master Lucius thought perhaps the stormy grey of his eyes grew faintly white, like the sea, but he could not be sure.
The Guttersnipe

annoyance

"I swear," he said to anyone who would listen, "that man cannot be got drunk. He's off already."
more of my 'Boxen'

joy

There is nothing, I thought to myself, so glorious as a high vision of the ocean as the world is descending into twilight. The many facets of amethyst colours, the sound of the wind, the silver, the singing, and the gold all burst upon us as a war-horse going into its last battle, trumpeting scarlet, furious and exultant. I drew in a breath to burst my lungs.
Blue Martlet


I seem proficient in sad or sad-seeming emotions. I'm friendly and bright by nature when you converse with me, but rather the opposite in writing - the emotions in writing can go so deep that, down there (or up there), joys really do sting.

"I love old things. They make me feel sad."
"What's good about sad?"
"It's happy for deep people."