I Am Not Them, But I’m Just As Scared
Cross-posted to the Deadline Dames, a year old and still going strong.
I can definitively state I AM NOT MY CHARACTERS.
Most of them–Danny and Jill spring immediately to mind for some reason–come from a pretty dark place. Others, not so much. I’ve had some scary experiences in my life (and something tell me I will have still more, life being what it is.) Some of those scary experiences are fuel. Others are just…there. They don’t go into books, they’re too personal. I have to come to terms with them in other ways.
Using the fuel of scary experiences can be good. It can help you process, it can help you deal. There are several different types of artistic fuel, however, and getting hooked on one to the exclusion of all others is a chancy proposition. Art does not live by one fuel alone–and trying to make it can have bad effects on you.
Case in point? Well, me. I’m in a state of highly personal, highly charged change right now. Some of the fuel I was using while I was miserable five years ago, or two years ago, or six months ago is no longer around. I don’t have that whip to push myself on. I am, to put it bluntly, afraid that if I get healthier or happier I will no longer be able to peer into those dark places or face them with the courage needed to pull those characters out of the shadows.
Most of me knows this is silly. As someone wise recently told me, “Those miseries were ways you had of coping and surviving. They worked to keep you whole and protect you. They’ll still be there if you need them again.” I know it’s true–I can put them back in my toolbox and get them out if I need them.
But, dear Reader…I’m scared. I’m scared the characters won’t talk to me if we don’t have the pain-points in common. I’m terrified that I’m a one-trick pony. I’m scared that getting healthier and happier will change something in my makeup and send me spinning and careening off into the woods, where my career will die a lonely death and I’ll end up hungry on the street.
I know it’s not rational. I know I’m feeling this because change is inherently frightening. When you add personal change to the cauldron of insecurities writing can and does uncover, it’s about as comfortable as bathing in a tub full of very angry cobras.
So how do you get through? How do you reassure yourself the words will still be there even if you change?
I suppose a simple answer is faith, with a large helping of stubbornness. I did not get to where I am today by listening to the fear or letting the rejection stop me. The words have been there during every other damn change in my life; this one just feels different because I’m suffering it OMGNOW! Time will add a measure of perspective that will drain my panic.
None of this helps with the agony of indecision, fear, and agitation I am experiencing, yea even at this very moment.
Which gives me hope. Over the course of a book, I take people apart. I feel their agonies while I whack away every single solid thing they rely on and put them through the wringer. They risk everything because they have no choice. It’s who they are, and living requires the courage to do no less.
I guess we’re not so different, my characters and me. Which brings me to my bone-deep stubbornness again. If they can make it through everything I can throw at them, I can make it through this. Jill would set her chin, glare out of her mismatched eyes, and stride forward. Danny’s thumb would caress the katana’s guard, and she’d wear that little half-smile. Kaia would grin and brace herself. Even Theo, the calmest and sweetest person I’ve ever written, would fold her arms and get that determined little glint in her eye.
No, they’re not (and never will be) me. But the strength to write them is and always has been mine. If I’ve lost the fuel of misery I’ll find something else to burn. If I’ve kept the fire going this long, I’ll likely find something else to throw on it. I have to trust–not my gods, not my characters, not other people. I have to trust in my own willingness to let the words come through me. I have to trust that I’m still interesting even when I’m not broken. That this will only make me stronger and better.
I’m not my characters. They can still teach me something. And I can look back on creating them and know there’s no shortage. Remember? My job isn’t to make the magic. My job is to show up every day.
I can do that. No matter how scared I am.
Related posts:
- Telling The Truth Is Dangerous
- Winning Is Just Showing Up, and Jealousy Giveaway!
- Get Your Fire Back In You
Tags: about me, deadline dames, Friday Writing, questions from the edge, what we know is true
February 5th, 2010 at 3:08 pm
I’m flabbergasted, because I had (have? will have again?) that same fear and I always thought it was just me. Yet somehow my characters seem to talk to me anyway. Honestly I think I’m better at tapping into those things when I’m not in the middle of them, in some ways.
Thank you so much (again and again, it seems) for your honesty.
February 5th, 2010 at 3:32 pm
I want to cry. I have said this before. What if I forgive the people who make me angry? What if I let go of the insecurities? What if, in an effort of self-preservation, I grow all happy happy Buddha peaceful, will I still be able to write the archetypes that move me the most because of how deeply I connect with them? If the fuel becomes insufficient, if my fascination shifts, if I’m no longer capable of empathizing…what if what I grow into is inferior to what I grew out of? What if I lose that connection? Does that make the anger and hurt and bruising and damage worth it? Or will unwillingness to grow necessarily result in stagnancy, even rot?
So many questions. Thank you for writing this. Your books mean the world to me. I don’t go anywhere without WFTD, not to travel, not to work, not to school.
February 5th, 2010 at 4:01 pm
Count me in as another who has been there done that, and still doing it. My first serious novel started out as a basic cathartic experience, then changed drastically as I did. Funny thing, though, it got better. And it grew with me. As of today I am years (9 years, to be specific) away from the shit that formed the core of that story, that character, and she’s still here. In fact no only is she still there, she brought friends. And then another character with significant issues showed up and you know what? I can still tap into what I need to tap into to evoke the reactions I need to evoke. Being happier and healthier doesn’t mean those parts of me have gone away, they’ve just ceased to screw me over in real life on a day to day basis. I’m glad for that, just as I am glad that I can still access those parts when I need to.
You know all this. I know you do. But at the end of the day, I’ll tell you what I ask myself when this subject hits me between the eyes: “What would Lilith do?”
She’d keep writing, that’s what she’d do. So keep writing.
February 5th, 2010 at 4:29 pm
I don’t you will ever loose your touch. It’s you. I love your
writing. Don’t loose your confidence. Just remeber that you have
fans that can’t wait for your next story. I wish I had just a touch
of your gift for telling stories. God Bless.
February 5th, 2010 at 5:09 pm
Yes, yes, yes. I’ve had the same fear, that if I don’t hang on to my anger, my hurt, all those powerful emotions, then how will I tap into them for my stories? Looking at it rationally, it’s very silly. I can empathize with characters that go through things I’ve never experienced, so why should I worry that if I’m calm, I won’t be able to write bitter anger?
The trick for me is to remember that I can tap into those things when I need them, just for the time that I’m writing. I can let it go after that.
February 5th, 2010 at 5:20 pm
you too?
the scariest moment i ever had was one evening listening to Spearhead’s “See You In the Light” and realizing i was happy, for the first time in years. that was about a year ago, and i still have moments when i can barely stand the fear of not knowing myself, not having that dark cocoon out of which i’ve crawled to crawl back into and hide. so far i’ve managed to stay out of it because there’s no other option. i’ve had other terrifying moments of being happy, but they usually go away after a while and i can go on with my life, slightly lighter. change is scary. it’s a sick comfort to know there are always those dark places to go back to, even if the world tells you it’s wrong, even if you feel it’s wrong. sometimes the dark is safe, and a haven, for all it’s inherent cruelty.
i’ve nothing else to say, so please excuse my blathering.
but something will come up; nothing lasts forever
February 5th, 2010 at 10:46 pm
I’m terrified that I’m a one-trick pony
You are that lovely green pony with the fabulous tentacles… and your herdmates are just as pretty.
February 5th, 2010 at 11:58 pm
Never, Lili.
I’ve changed too- I am beyond-words happy and still, the Muse speaks to me. She shows me things, and sometimes I have to think that they’re even MORE dark, twisted, screwed up and beautiful then they were when I was unhappy, angry and lost….
Terrified that they’d go away if I took a chance to be happy, and here I am two years later, still just happy and still scribbling as furiously as the day I discovered I could.
I finally just place trust in the Muse that no matter what, she gave me a talent and it’ll never go away.
And you writings? Mean more to people you may never meet more then you ever know (yes, including myself)…..Never stop, Lili. I still grip that rope ever so tightly…..
February 8th, 2010 at 10:31 pm
I agree with you guys, we don’t need to experience fear to write fear, or experience divorce to write about a character who is getting divorced.
Writing what you know gets old after a while, and face it, if you write fantasy, you’re doomed. Likewise, if you write about serial killers (when you aren’t one or haven’t ever known one) you need to pull emotion and tension from a place you’ve never been.
I understand the fear in writing. But for me, the fear isn’t, “Can I find the character inside myself and write it,” rather its “Can I find an emotional experience I care about enough to craft a character around?”
I’ve always been happy, one of those boring well-adjusted childhoods. I write about some pretty twisted people. Not one of them is me. Still they come from that great pool that all of us tap into. I trust that pool never to dry up!
(I don’t think it will)
February 9th, 2010 at 8:42 pm
” I’m scared that getting healthier and happier will change something in my makeup and send me spinning and careening off into the woods, where my career will die a lonely death and I’ll end up hungry on the street”
Some fears are rational, but this, as you surely must have realized as you typed it (quoted above), is not. It is an oxymoron – almost in one sentence, but certainly in the context of your message. “hungry on the street”? – surely that state would be a career building inspiration for the author of the message you’ve written.
My suggestion is get rich, happy, and if you like it, complacent. Then, you can indulge yourself by writing about the descent into disgrace and despair of such a character.