If you have read any of my writing or any of my blog posts thus far, you’ll know that I am very connected to my writing. It’s a huge part of who I am, so naturally, my emotions are very intertwined with what I write. So, I thought I would share my experience with writing very candidly about my emotions with all of you.
One of the first ways I knew I was really connected to my writing was my ability to end up crying while I was writing things. There’s really no way for me to talk about this without spoiling some things, so I apologize for that. While writing “Cora”, I believe I cried at least five times. There’s not that many situations that would deem that reaction from the audience, but as I mentioned in my last post, I was very passionate about writing “Cora”, and I think I was a little too emotionally connected to it. It’s also not just sad moments that make me cry, either. Sweet moments between characters also cue my waterworks. Part of the reason that this happens is because my female main characters all have an essence of me in them, and as established, I’m incredibly connected to my characters, so what they’re feeling, so am I. I will not give specific instances that these have come up, but scenes where the love interests have to say goodbye to each other for a while are bad for making me cry, as well as characters grieving the loss of a loved one. Side note, though, I have not killed off an animal, and I have no intention of doing that because A) I think that’s evil, and B) I can’t handle that either.
Something that has come up recently in my writing is the idea of cuteness aggression. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s the idea that something is so cute it makes you angry; it’s common with animals or babies. But now, my writing is giving me cuteness aggression. Specifically, interactions between Catalina and Dallas in the novel I’m currently writing. At one point, and this isn’t a spoiler at all, he says the phrase, “You feel like home to me, sweet pea.” And let me tell you, dear readers, that I was grinning like a fool as I was writing that phrase into my computer, and I had to bury my face in the cuffs of my hoodie. You know, just writer things. I think the reason that this is coming up so much for me recently is because I had to take some time off from my writing, so now all of the cute stuff is meaning so much more to me. Truthfully, a lot of my earlier Instagram posts were just quotes that made me smile like a fool. I do still post those lines, but there’s some other content peppered in there as well.
Something that became very apparent to me during the writing of “Love Through Agony” was that I turned to my writing as a form of therapy for myself. There’s something so freeing about dumping all of your innermost thoughts onto a blank page and being able to write back exactly what you need to hear in that moment. I’ve said it time and time again that writing that novel helped me get through my endometriosis. Now, I’m using my writing as a way to deal with other emotional strifes. One of the first posts I made on my blog was about how I fell victim to the easy conflict that is villainizing an ex partner, and that hasn’t changed. But there’s something so therapeutic about writing about a crappy experience with a character that inherently sucks. I don’t make the rules, I just follow them. Back to the actual way this is therapy to me, it was really strange when I took time away from my writing when I was sick. I’ve talked about this before, but it felt like I lost a part of myself. I was going through something really challenging, yet I had no energy to do the one thing that I knew could quiet my mind. I wanted to lean on my book boyfriends, who are another form of therapy for me, but I felt so disconnected from them because I wasn’t writing. It felt like I had never needed my writing (aka my therapy) more, but I just couldn’t do it.
I wasn’t going to talk about this here, but mentioning them got me thinking about how therapeutic my book boyfriends are to me. If you don’t know, I refer to the romantic male leads of my novels as my book boyfriends, since I’m incredibly connected to them. When I am feeling low or anxious, I can practically hear Flynn’s voice in my head, telling me that everything is going to be okay. Or when I’m in a bad chronic pain flare up, Tobias is right there with me, guiding me through it. When I can’t sleep at night, Vance is with me, trying to soothe me. I know these characters aren’t real, but they are a real coping mechanism for me. This isn’t a new thing, either. Back when I was first dealing with my anxiety as a young teen, Alejandre, who is one of my favourite characters that we’re going to come back to, was a way that I got through it. As he helped Charlotte with her anxiety, he helped me with mine. Tobias helps Tessa with her chronic pain, Vance helps Nora with her sexual trauma…you get the idea. I write the characters I need, even if I don’t know it in the moment.
The moral of this story is that my writing has gotten me through some of the hardest parts of my life, but it’s also been there when I’m thriving and just have a heart full of stories that I need to tell. Again, my writing isn’t a real person, obviously, but it’s like a best friend to me that never leaves. It keeps me sane and is such a central part of my personality that I don’t know who I would be without it. And there’s something really f**cking magical about that.
That's all for now, folks!
-C
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