Yes, I understand it, put that way. I try to turn off all emotion when I write. It's more of an intellectual jigsaw puzzle, for me. It's a left brain activity.
But I may be fooling myself. I go into a zone when I write. Everything else just disappears, I'm concentrating so intently on the writing, so much in the zone, that maybe I don't even know how I do what I do.
I tend to doubt this, however, because I go into the same zone with a couple of other activities that have nothing to do with writing or emotions.
But you've given me something to think about, something I think I need to study.
So that's kinda the point I was thinking actually. Because say you get super passionate/"in the zone" about carpentry, most times you do something like fashion a cabinet. How you feel is still affecting the output, indirectly. When you aren't "in the zone," you would have a harder time coming up with a better product, potentially. Not always, but it does seem to be a factor. Writing is ultimately just like any other craft in that sense, it's just different skills. I'm not saying you can only write what you do feel, but what you feel/how you're currently able to interact with the world affects what you are personally capable of. If you've got pneumonia and feeling miserable, or mono and practically a zombie, or insanely frustrated, etc, it's going to affect the quality of your work, your focus, efficiency... etc. I know what you mean when you say you're in the zone, or it's a left brain activity, because I get that way about most things I get passionate about when I do them. I still have trouble with those things when I'm depressed, mopey, and just wanna eat nachos all day. Writing utilizes and manipulates emotions, so on that level, you have to be able to understand them, how to do that, and be in a frame of mind where you can access that knowledge. It's not
just that, of course. It's structure. It's word choice/sentence construction. An intellectual jigsaw puzzle. But you have to be able to utilize your emotional intelligence, too.
It isn't exactly the same thing, but I firmly believe that it's the small details that make the big moments believable. Whether it's a tiny bit of dialogue, a line or two of description at the right place, or some movement the character makes that seems inconsequential at the time, these things make the big story realistic.
So I'm not bored writing any scene. I'm not excited, either. I simply pay attention to everything, small or large.
Excited in this case, I mean more engaged.
In any case, there's of course the question of who you're writing for/why you write. If it's for an audience you yourself are a part of, then you are in a sense your own first reader, albeit a bit too attached, perhaps. If you're audience varies from what you like most, that's also something to be aware of and why you wouldn't be
as engaged with certain scenes over others.
I should have been clearer...sex scenes are simply more difficult for me to write. Ditto with car chase scenes...they're just insanely difficult for me to write. It's not for lack of interest or anything, they're just...harder. So sometimes I'll put them off until after I've written some other scenes.
And scenes that don't interest me terribly are usually just not gripping me *in the moment*, but will pique my interest later after I've worked on something else. Hence writing out of sequence.
Sorry about the confusion.
Nope, that pretty much makes sense, I can at times, be easily confused.