Do negative emotions make for better creative decisions?

Do negative emotions during the creative practice make for better decisions as a writer?
That’s one suggestion that comes from the recent article by Jonah Lehrer on the ‘upside’ of sadness. Lehrer examines research, published in Psychological Review by Andy Thompson and Paul Andrews, psychiatrist and evolutionary psychologist, which offers the idea that sadness and depression [...]

Ellroy and emotion

“So that women with love me. That’s why I do everything I do.”
I missed it on Sunday but fortunately caught the repeat driving to work this morning of the crime novelist James Ellroy on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs. The writer was incredibly open about his motivations – for writing, and with women – many [...]