Characters: Adding to the World Population.

Recently another writer told me that she cried when she finished writing her book. I thought it was interesting because I often do that too.

Perhaps it's because the ending was sad.

Perhaps it's because we just finished what seems like an eternity of work and exhaustion takes over.

But, I think for me, it's like losing a friend. It's like a scene at the airport: you know you'll see your friends and family again but you cry anyway.

My characters are dear to me, sometimes I know them better and have spent more time with them (in my mind) than I have with my real friends. I know my characters are not real. I know that I wont walk into a shop someday and see them. When I finish a novel I feel a sense of sadness knowing a chapter (no pun intended) of my life is done.

I miss them. Often their life, their story continues in my head and out pops the sequel.

Maybe I'm alone in feeling this, but, I don't think so. In my world, the population is just a little larger.

ann

Warning: I have thirty or more different reasons to feel sad...

I suffer from bouts of depression. We all do. It's a bloody sad, sad world. However,I feel as writers, we have to be MORE careful.

Why?

Because writers, like you and I, have something I call 'CHARACTER EMPATHY'. When my real, non-imaginary life is going badly, I feel sad... depressed even. The same as everyone else.

However, when anyone of my thirty or more characters in any of my novels or short stories feel's sad or depressed, I can also, for them, fall into sadness or depression. Take my character Sophia, whose head I'm in most, she' a strong character but even she gets sad sometimes and that makes me sad.

My character Theo, whose wife was in a car accident, is also feeling down. From his POV I'm sad. In fact, because I live the exciting life of my books, happiness and satisfaction are rarely felt, hence the excitement part. My life is a constant climax of events.

SO A TIP: take time out from writing each day just to go to that happy place. Look at a happy picture. I buy Britain magazine and look through the wonderful hotel adverts. Ah, to be in the Cotswolds or the Peaks.

Don't fall too deep into Character Empathy. Be happy. Think happy place.

ann