Great point. I work with a lot of characters, and it makes me feel a little schizoid in real life. The intuitive and empathic effort it takes to write a great character from the inside out is exhausting. It's like being a skin-changer, maybe? There's me, but as I go about my life, there are other voices, reactions, and choices in my imagination as my characters jostle around inside my brain. It doesn't matter if I'm writing or not. They even come into my dreams.
Now that I read that back to myself, it sounds a little nuts. Oh, well! I probably am a little nuts!
It's not just you!! This happens to me, too. Writing personal essays for the blog doesn't drain me too badly. That's just a weekly play session. Publishing my fiction serially here is OK. It's already written, of course, I'm just editing and getting it into Substack. But raw writing in my fantasy series? Oh, boy. I love it. I'm transported. By the time I come back to the "real" world in order to eat or drink or pee, I'm completely exhausted. All that's left is enough to sit in the sun with a good book or play solitaire. That's part of what makes it so hard to fit writing into my life between work and all the rest. I know it's going to take everything I have. But it's part of why I love it, too. It takes everything I have, all the best I am, the real stuff, not my ability to take care of house, cats, dishes, laundry, etc. None of that is who I am. The writing is who I am.
Great point. I work with a lot of characters, and it makes me feel a little schizoid in real life. The intuitive and empathic effort it takes to write a great character from the inside out is exhausting. It's like being a skin-changer, maybe? There's me, but as I go about my life, there are other voices, reactions, and choices in my imagination as my characters jostle around inside my brain. It doesn't matter if I'm writing or not. They even come into my dreams.
Now that I read that back to myself, it sounds a little nuts. Oh, well! I probably am a little nuts!
It's not just you!! This happens to me, too. Writing personal essays for the blog doesn't drain me too badly. That's just a weekly play session. Publishing my fiction serially here is OK. It's already written, of course, I'm just editing and getting it into Substack. But raw writing in my fantasy series? Oh, boy. I love it. I'm transported. By the time I come back to the "real" world in order to eat or drink or pee, I'm completely exhausted. All that's left is enough to sit in the sun with a good book or play solitaire. That's part of what makes it so hard to fit writing into my life between work and all the rest. I know it's going to take everything I have. But it's part of why I love it, too. It takes everything I have, all the best I am, the real stuff, not my ability to take care of house, cats, dishes, laundry, etc. None of that is who I am. The writing is who I am.