I sat in my office reading an article in the Writer’s Digest entitled, “Writing Big Feelings (Minus the Maudlin)” by Peter Mountford. Peter discusses how authors should handle 10 basic human emotions—anger, happiness, sadness, fear, surprise, disgust, pride, shame, embarrassment, and excitement—when writing stories.
I pondered why “love” was not listed. Who knows? But it’s my favorite human emotion.
Then I asked myself, “How many of my stories contain those basic emotions?” And as I thought, I saw a white bolt of lightening strike my banana tree. In five seconds, thunder boomed, crashed and rumbled the foundation of my home. And yes, my house creaked. And as I listened to the downpour, I imagined hundreds of white winged angels collecting shissels (tubs) of rain and dumping them from the clouds. Yes, we writers are blessed with vivid imaginations.
Now for a second day those angels worked nonstop flooding South Florida homes, filling swimming pools to the brim, and inundating the tarmacs at Fort Lauderdale International Airport.
Acidic fear started to burn a small hole in the pit of my stomach.
You may ask ,”Why?”
Well, because tomorrow morning I had scheduled a flight to Alaska, where I and my family were set to go on a cruise. A reunion and a vacation three years in the planning. What do they say about plans going awry. Yes, G-d does act in mysterious ways. But why does it seem that his angels always seem to rain on my parade.
Then I heard my iPhone ping. I jumped to get my phone. The text message from Air Alaska read:
We’re sorry to inform you that due to severe weather conditions, your flight has been cancelled. See your email for more info.
WTF was I going to do!
I called my eldest son, Jason, and for the next two hours we worked on alternative plans. We managed to get flights out of Orlando and make it to the cruise on time.
G-d is good.
I went back to reading Mountford’s article and I realized that in a matter of two hours and three minutes, I had experienced: anger, happiness, sadness, fear, excitement and love.
And I was able to turn my experience into this month’s President’s message.
So SFWA members keep writing about your basic emotions. They are what make life and writing so interesting.
Your president, Mort
