Talking to myself talking to them

[nekosd43]

Once upon a time, the majority of my brainstorming was done in the shower and in the moments between consciousness and sleep when I was laying in bed.  I think most people have similar creative areas.  When I was falling asleep, I could bounce ideas around and plan out plots, and the stuff that stuck with me when I was awake the next day was stuff worth visiting.  I've written hundreds of pages based on the material I came up with when I was almost but not quite asleep.  When I was in the shower, I could verbally ask questions, and I would let myself answer back in character.  I would try to do the voices (badly) and the proper emotional tones (I once made myself cry on accident by getting really into character) and it was a really useful tool to creating distinct voices for my characters that I could identify differences between.

I haven't done either in a really long time.

I was able to talk to one of my characters today.  It was almost surreal because I kinda forgot that was one of my tools, but I asked a question that I was thinking about, and I found myself answering in character.  Weird.  But it felt good?  Like I was talking to an old friend but not really because I was just talking to myself.  In a deeper voice.

I like to think I'm making little steps back into writing.  I've been trying to get deeper into the characters, been doing some paintings to reestablish them mentally, and now this happens.  I think it's a good sign I'm on the right path.

Or that I'm going crazy.  Whichever.