well, now that was intense.
I have heard stories before about authors writing an emotional scene and emerging an emotional wreck. Although I've been very swept away in my stories before, I'd never had an experience that I felt was comparable; the worst I'd come off so far was a teary eye when writing what will someday be the epilogue to the Immortal Trilogy. (Ironically, I wasn't moved by all the people I'd killed off in the past hundred pages... it was the death of the horse that got me!) I've always been slightly in awe of people who can become so emotionally invested in their characters that they can lose themselves, just as I'm in awe of people who pour incredible amounts of passion and emotion into their art. Someday, I thought, that will happen to me.
It happened tonight, when I started to write what I thought was a simple bridge scene, connecting two passages in my work-in-progress novel. Two thousand words later I realized I was writing the big climax at the end of the book - with no turning back. Aw, damn, ice dancing was starting, but I couldn't leave Serena and her mother hanging THERE, could I? Just a few more paragraphs, okay, set everything up for the big emotional hook...
WHAM! Suddenly I was not sitting cross-legged on my bed, in jeans and a ponytail, drumming my fingers thoughtfully on the edge of an inexpensive laptop. Suddenly I was standing in a dark and lonely street watching my house burn down, frantically searching for my sister, refusing to believe that she could still be inside. Suddenly I was shaking and I could smell the smoke and the faraway fishy, salty tang of the sea and I saw him on the road and I was so frightened, so angry with him that there were tears welling up in my eyes and one of them landed on my keyboard and I realized that ice dancing was just going to have to wait.
My goodness.
I would also like to present proof that music videos are a great evil and frequently RUIN perfectly good music. This hauntingly beautiful song popped up on Pandora today, and it was so perfect for the mood of the scene that I looked it up on YouTube for a repeat listen. The song is still gorgeous. The video is the most creepy and disturbing thing I've seen in a long time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQqprsRs2Vg
Go on and click it. You know you want to.
It happened tonight, when I started to write what I thought was a simple bridge scene, connecting two passages in my work-in-progress novel. Two thousand words later I realized I was writing the big climax at the end of the book - with no turning back. Aw, damn, ice dancing was starting, but I couldn't leave Serena and her mother hanging THERE, could I? Just a few more paragraphs, okay, set everything up for the big emotional hook...
WHAM! Suddenly I was not sitting cross-legged on my bed, in jeans and a ponytail, drumming my fingers thoughtfully on the edge of an inexpensive laptop. Suddenly I was standing in a dark and lonely street watching my house burn down, frantically searching for my sister, refusing to believe that she could still be inside. Suddenly I was shaking and I could smell the smoke and the faraway fishy, salty tang of the sea and I saw him on the road and I was so frightened, so angry with him that there were tears welling up in my eyes and one of them landed on my keyboard and I realized that ice dancing was just going to have to wait.
My goodness.
I would also like to present proof that music videos are a great evil and frequently RUIN perfectly good music. This hauntingly beautiful song popped up on Pandora today, and it was so perfect for the mood of the scene that I looked it up on YouTube for a repeat listen. The song is still gorgeous. The video is the most creepy and disturbing thing I've seen in a long time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQqprsRs2Vg
Go on and click it. You know you want to.