Writers All Tread a Thin Line

Lately, I have drowned myself in working on my writing projects selflessly. I have been sitting in front of my laptop whenever I have time and been lost in the worlds I created. Even if it feels so warm and not lonely and alive, I have been noticing some disturbing feelings and changes in me when I sit down and write for several hours a day. It’s not a bad thing, but I feel as if I can’t pull out as easily as I thought from the world I’ve spent hours in.

They say many writers are fighting depression or losing their minds because of something that happened in their lives. And there are many authors in history that are clear proof of that. Virginia Woolf who is one of my favorite female authors is one very good example of that.

I wouldn’t say that I am someone suffering from depression or losing my mind. Maybe I am but not that I am aware of. I just feel that lately whatever I am working on greatly affects me for hours on end. I feel like it’s almost impossible for me to pull back fully from the character’s state of mind. I don’t if I am them or myself if that makes any sense. It could be possible I feel too heavily influenced by the characters just spending too much time on them.

On to the main point of this post, I wanted to state that I feel writers too often tread along a very thin boundary line between being in the character’s mind and becoming the character themselves in reality. What are writers? Writers are the people who compose these amazing stories and create these characters that are easy to connect to and to understand. Writers tell a thousand stories, live a thousand lives, understand a thousand minds and yet cannot understand their own. I would be willing to bet anything that there are writers out there who are unable to draw a clear line of separation between themselves and their characters. They will say: ‘I am so and so.’

When you play a role for so long, been in a certain person’s mind too long, I feel that you can’t help but feel that a part of them has grown onto you and you are them in some ways. You’ve become inseparable and no longer see or know which is the real you and which is not. That’s why readers say authors are so influential or a character is so influential.

It’s such a phenomenal experience and state of mind to be in and that’s what I’m feeling right now. I guess that’s why lately I’ve been scaring some friends of mine. It’s because I’ve been too invested and emotionally affected by the stories I’ve been working on!