Some writers drink or use drugs in order to tap into that ‘litmosphere’ but I seem to get there on raw emotion. I’m a feeler and not a very intelligent one, mind you. I can sniff out quite a bit about how others are feeling, but articulating my own emotions face to face and making decisions absent of those emotions is as hard for me as speaking mandarin. Maybe that is what makes me a decent writer. I tend to bleed on the page. I have a better grasp of what and how I am feeling when I am doing so through the lens of another character. Its kind of screwed up, but there it is.
So, when I write characters there is always an emotional piece of me lurking right there below the surface. It can be wants and needs or fears or strange emotions I haven’t quite sorted out. In a way that is what keeps me writing. I’m not just figuring out the world I live in, I’m figuring out myself. I’m finding the things that make me happy and keep me strong and help me to feel like I have a place and a role in this world.
In the end it all comes down to having that all important sense of self. I have a friend, who i’ve mentioned before, who is basically a modern ronin. He lives by the principles and ideas of that set and has found his place and purpose and happiness in the world. I can’t point to any particular pre-built and say, ‘yep, thats me’. I also cannot say that I have ever found or built a character that is entirely reflective of me and my wants and needs. Maybe I’ll find that mirror in the words or one day come to better recognize it in real life.
Perhaps that is what it means to be the best possible version of yourself. Perhaps that version is crafted out of experience and desire and the core skills and abilities you’ve taken from your travels in the world. Maybe there is no externalization of that and the only way to be that and see that is to be and see it on your own and in yourself. The waiting and searching never seems to come to anything more than just more waiting.