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Keeping It Real

Since those of you reading this don't know me, you'll have to take my word for it.  I'm not an arrogant person. In fact, I tend to be very hard on myself and undervalue what I accomplish.  Still, I do think a lot.

I often wonder about writers who think a lot and how they make believable characters who don't.  This may be why I have trouble finding publishers—although my characters aren’t Mary Sues, they tend to be smart and tend to think things through.

In my head I know that many people react on impulse and don't think of consequences.  Would crime be an issue, for example, if people thought through the likely outcome?  I have trouble turning it off though.  When my characters do something illogical it tends to be extreme.

Bipolar isn't likely an accurate description, but I do tend to be depressed a lot and very happy at other times.  I find that I write better when I'm depressed, probably because it's a form of therapy.  When I'm down, however, I can't think of why anybody would do something illogical.

It's when I'm in a good head-space that I can think of the subtle things that would be interesting in the context of a story.  I have trouble writing, however, when things are not bothering me.



Don't get me wrong, I write every day.  In some form or other I put time into my craft.  I have to soldier through, no matter how I feel.  But I'm not sure how other people do it.

This seems to me the dilemma of the writer.  I don't talk to other people on a regular basis.  I don't get to ask them how they would think through a situation.  Worse yet, the people I do talk to don't know that I write.


Writing alone is difficult.  I'm stuck in my own head.  Still, I can't write in a crowd.  Perhaps this is the writer's ultimate dilemma.  We have to live in at least two different worlds.

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