Let’s be clear; no single exercise ever aims to be a cure-all, and the goal behind processing through creative writing is never to minimise or forget or move on to apathy and oblivion – very much the opposite; writing is a great way to honour emotions and experiences.
Anger at injustice, worry about the destruction of the environment, frustration at certain political and economic events, deep sadness at genocide and inequality – these are obviously rough things to live with, but ultimately amount to caring. And caring is one of our (humanity’s) superpowers.
But it is a power we want to hold onto tenderly and exercise with consideration. If we haven’t processed enough, we likely have a stormy knot of thoughts and feelings, and the goals with writing to process are to a) untangle things so we can see them clearly and use them well b) release and feel a little lighter c) gain insight and be more ready to make the best decisions and take action.
Here are three writing exercises to process anger and injustice. Pick one that makes sense for you, or do all three – whatever you like.
a) Distance in time for perspective – 1) Choose an intensely difficult historical event that you relate to a little, like the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or WW1, or slavery, or invasion and colonisation of a country or region 2) Imagine you are you, but you are living through that event. 3) Write a paragraph with your stream of thoughts or describing how you feel, or describing your actions and habits and reactions to the event or period. 4) Now, write another, separate paragraph or two. This time you are around 50 years in the future and you are talking about this current period (2025) to a new generation; grandchildren or young folks at a bar – whatever you like. Describe this current period to them so they can understand it. Assume they only have a basic understanding of history, so situate it in some context like what led up to it or what sort of dynamics made it possible.
b) Third person for articulating how you feel – Be that fly on the ceiling and look down at yourself (now, as you write, or yourself going about life for the past week). Write about yourself in third person, about what you have been feeling, what those feelings are a reaction to, how they are expressed through your actions, in your body. Try to show rather than tell as much as you can (Example: she slammed the door as she entered the stuffy bedroom, then dropped her bag into the middle of the floor. She grabbed her phone out of it and sat on the edge of the bed, scrolling through names to message someone, anyone, about how shitty things were getting, then thought better of it. But as she closed Whatsapp, the news app popped up and she saw another headline. This time…).
c) Imagine – There is a lot of hope and expression of desire when we daydream. The details rarely matter – if we daydream of a trip to the desert, we’re usually just expressing a desire for rest or for quietness, for example. And processing injustice is about naming what’s wrong, but also about hoping for something else, then moving – likely very slowly and by organising with others – towards it. So 1) Choose the superpower you would most like to have right now. Honestly, I’d love to be able to move money out of certain billionaires’ bank accounts, to where it is most needed. Or to talk to and listen to people in other places like Gaza and Congo through the breeze and the moon. 2) Write about using that superpower. Go wild. We’re allowed to do that when we’re writing stories.
resistance words 