I Need a Break from This Book

One of the joys of writing to me is the way as I write, I would often find myself in each and one of my characters either 'good' or 'bad'. Sometimes I hate them for it, sometimes I love them for it but either love or hate, I understand them better because of it and in understanding them, I understand myself even more.

It is through them that I sometimes realize a problem that I should be dealing with or an obstacle that I should have dealt with but didn’t, sometimes I see a solution to a problem that I’m currently dealing with or a better understanding of what happened in the past years of my life or why I did the things I did.

Sometimes, as in most cases, I find pieces of myself that hadn’t the chance to show themselves in my main characters and it amuses me, sometimes it confuses me. 

This character though that I’m working on disturbs me a little bit. Okay, a lot.

In Leah, my character in the Touched series, I see the stubborness in me, the spite and fury and pride that often pulls me back from what I should have done. But it felt good to be in Leah’s skin because she is strong, she is capable, and she is surrounded by people who love her and because she is sure of herself and what she can do and because she keeps her chin up and is able to adapt quickly within her life. She might not be able to fight her fate, or to elude her destiny, but by God she would fight it every inch of the way. And I respect that fierceness in her, her strong grip on her sense of self. Leah is, for better or worst, a survivor.

In Lorelei, my character in the Wolves series, I find cunning and caution and compromise. Lorelei will not move until she knows all the consequences, she knows how to move people, to influence people with words and with actions. Although she is powerless at first among powerful people, she is able to pin-point what needed to be done and she would either do it herself or find somebody who has the right tools to do so.

Lorelei is not only smart but intelligent, when people look down on her, she merely goes around them and does whatever she wants anyway. Again, she is someone who is secure in herself that she doesn’t need approval from anybody. While everybody would be so busy grandstanding you can always see Lorelei at the background trying to find a way to solve the problem as best as she can. Lorelei doesn’t want to be the great pooh bah, she doesn’t want power or a grand position. She only wants people to feel happy and get along. People might find that weak, or gullible or say that's she's a pleasure, but that side of her that wants to help, that is willing to give, that is selfless, I find that admirable. And it's humbling and mortifying to be in her skin because I know I don't have those qualities in me. But once in a while I would have to do something and I think "Lorelei would find the strength and the caring to do it" and I would swallow my pride or selfishness and did what needed to be done.

Medea though, in this NaNoWriMo book, is...she’s different. She’s like the female version of Justin (anyone whose read my posts on writing Touched series, knows how baffled I am of his character), I can’t pin point her, I can’t relate much to her because she doesn’t relate to anyone, she doesn’t love, she doesn’t fight, she doesn't live--if you know what I mean. Medea lives like a ghost passing through, because of her condition--her nightterrors and darkness--she’s currently living in the edge of her sanity. She concentrates on living one day at a time, a wrong move and she will crack and break open. Medea avoids the very whisper of confrontation, she shies away from strong emotions, she doesn’t get mad, she doesn’t hate, she’s in a constant state of antipathy. She doesn’t plan ahead, she doesn’t have dreams, she doesn’t have friends, and she lives in constant fear of people thinking her crazy or that her adopted parents will see how damaged she is and exchange her with a better child.

And writing her opens up cracks inside me in ways that I’m scared of, makes me see things that I’d rather not about myself, feel things that—I feel sad all the time. I go around in a state of near tears. It’s horrible to be this fearful and this empty, to have this certainty that you are unwanted. That somehow you can disappear and everything around you won't change. 

Terrifying thought, ain't it? And selfish.

Things happened in my life that makes me fear abandonment, and I guess the way I deal with that is by sorting my relationships in neat little boxes, by compartmentalizing each section of my life into different categories. I choose people who has certain aspects that makes me able to shake loose from them. If you don't get too close, it won't hurt too much when they leave you. I give them some of my time, then spend most of it alone as if to prove to myself that yeah, I can survive being alone. And I do like being alone. I'm not saying I don't boo hoo woe is me, but sometimes I wonder how much of my solitary habit is because of just me and my hermit habits and how much is because of fear. 

And then there are darker thoughts. And Medea has really dark thoughts add to that her nightterrors and her inabillity to sleep...you kind of get why she's so desperate and alone and frustrated and empty. 

How she wants everything to just end.

Then there is the Fae. Creepy buggers. I've never taken a shine to the Fae world because they creep me out. I have no problem with vampires, and ghosts, and zombies, and werewolves because for better or worse, they were humans once. We can understand them but the Fae were never human. While the vamps and werewolves and zombies can kill you, the Fae--like Elena says--they won't kill you, they will unmake you. 

Putting myself into the Fae's shoes, being so crafty, and manipulative, and sick, and twisted, and ruthless, and ageless, and so willing to hurt people kind of makes me feel like I need to take a shower every few minutes. To find myself thinking of such thoughts makes me feel *shudder*.

Due to my emotional condition, I need to take a break from this book and start on another. Something less hopeless, and less dark. 

So...yeah.