I Wrote a Book and I Fell in Love
Occupational hazard.
For writers, it's generally a good sign if they cry while writing a particularly poignant scene. In Freudian Slip, my next Red Dress Ink title, at a key moment when Julian makes a courageous but heartbreaking choice, I literally wept. For two days afterward, I didn't really want to eat . . . had trouble sleeping.
If I laugh out loud at certain parts in my comedies . . . it's a good sign. If I find that I am smiling when I am writing, it means I am onto something.
I have felt a physical ache for some of my characters. In The Roofer, when I wrote the scene when Tom and Ava rode the subway as teens, observing "normal" families, knowing (as only the writer would know) what was shortly going to happen to Tom, I felt a real pang.
And while working on a children's book of all things, I have fallen in love with the cousin character. He's Russian and he kind of looks like the model above. He's arrogant and charming and brilliant. And he's threatening to overtake the book, which is something I have to guard against--he's just that clever.
And I am convinced only other writers "get" this phenomenon, wherein your characters are so developed, or your story is so real to you, that they intrude on your real life. They become so real that they butt into parts of your book you don't want them in. So real they can make you cry knowing their fate.
Writing? Or mental illness?
I wrote a book and I fell in love. Happen to anyone else?
14 comments:
Writing? Or mental illness?
Ha! That would depend who you ask...
I finally fell in love with my YA hero, so hopefully the writing will speed up.
Hi Heather:
Yeah, it does speed up the writing, I think. I'm always dying to see what happens next.
As for the writing/mental illness debate . . . ask my FAMILY and they may say differently.
E
I have a tendency to fall in love with my villains. Because I understand them, I know their backgrounds before anyone else in the story does, and I realize that they were misunderstood little boys who didn't get the love and attention they craved, and then...well, I love them as adults, even if they can be creeps. :-)
So what's the name of the guy in the pic, Erica? He's so gorgeous!
Hmm, no definitive answer here this morning...not sure if I should be stretching out on the couch or not. :)
I ALWAYS fall in love with one of the characters. I tell the dh its like an innocent way of having various affairs...a new man with every manuscript!
The ms I started most recently wasn't even supposed to be a romance, but the bad guy just kinda got to me and I know I won't be able to write the rest of the story without finding him love in one form or another. Oh, and just cuz my brain has been mangled lately, I was thinking about him so much, I actually called dh by the characters name...not in a heated moment or anything...but still.
Okay, so I probably should sign up for the couch!
Michele:
he's a Russian model I found on
www.hunkymalecelebs.com
Yes, it's a great site. :-)
E
Michele:
I fell in love with only one villain--in the first Billie Quinn book. I think it's because I really saw him as a victim of grief and circumstance--not someone who intentionally set out to be bad. Misunderstood, I guess.
E
Hi Lainey:
I get ya. I really do. It's a way to picture something idealistic . . . to create your own escape versus letting someone else do it (for example, going to the movies is a great escape--but it's still someone ELSE'S ideal).
E
Every single bloody time.
I've fallen for every single one of my heroes--and had a twitch for a minor character or two.
I've loved them, understood them, occasionally felt sorry for them, dreamed of them. I've even interviewed one or two.
They're even sexier in person. :-D
Mental illness.
Definitely.
raine:
LOL!
The first time it happened to me, I remember, distonctly, I was about 17 and working on a short story and decided the main character committed suicide. He was very real to me. Since then . . . over and over again . . .
Leaning toward the mental illness diagnosis.
E
Wow, I think I'm in love with him already. A children's book?
You know, my writing is often like grinding in poker. I have to shove it out, letter by letter. And the mornings where my imagination is flying and stuff? When I go to write, it grinds out even slower. I don't know why.
So I may cry when I'm imagining in the shower, but I won't cry while writing it. If I re-read my story a few months later, I may cry. But not during the writing of it. :-)
PS: That man is HOT! And not just the picture, your description of him!
spy:
Wow . . . interesting that while doing it the process is different from imagining it earlier on or reading later. When I write, I'm really IN IT. And I never re-read my own books.
As for Damian (my children's book character), he's a magician and he's very mysterious . . . and oh-so-cocky, and yet . . . he inspires confidence in his leadership of the clan. I just love him!
Absolutely, but not in a romantic sense... more in a sense that I start to care deeply for them, as real people, as I love my friends and family. I really love the wounded ones. The completely dysfunctional and messed up ones.
I think it's because the characters ARE real. They're an amalgam of people we've met, pain we've shared, human-ness we've experienced. I think the only way to create such characters is by loving people. And I think we have to love all our characters.
I've never cried while writing prose or a screenplay, only while writing poetry. Like SpyScribbler, though, I've cried when reading something later. I cried at the end of my novel.
Hi Open:
That happens to me a lot--caring what happens to them. Tom in The Roofer would make a lousy romantic interest (he's an alcoholic), BUT . . . I loved him more than any character I've ever written.
E
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