Dwelling on sadness and pain can create some of the most beautiful and authentic masterpieces of art. Many of my favorite writing pieces, if not all, have stemmed from a dark place. But as far as I am concerned the dark writing pieces without any silver-lining of illumination belong in the privacy of my journal, not on the webpages of my blog.
Ranting and moping into a diary is effortless, while publicly writing about sadness and pain is tricky. On one hand you want to adequately express yourself, but on the other hand you want to contribute something beneficial to society. And it is extremely hard to benefit people with writing so focused on negative topics and dark emotions. Negative writing that is meant for eyes other than your own should be handled very carefully, thoughtfully, and considerately so that the writing does not cross from “comforting” over to “bringing other people down with you”.

This goes back to my motto: Finding beauty in darkness. Darkness without beauty is idle, or, if anything, detrimental. But darkness with beauty- whether that be the beauty of coming away from a hardship having a personal revelation, the beauty of knowing that you are not alone in struggling or feeling badly, or even the beauty of spreading word about something negative to elicit positive change- that is what I believe art is meant to be. You need a bright side to see the beauty in darkness. And when it comes to my art, dismal writing without any silver-lining belongs in the diary.

– Valerie Parente (7-1-16)