As I write The Sound of Madness (aka in my work in progress (WIP), I had to take a week off of writing in it.

It’s a cardinal rule in my writing world to write a minimum of 500 words a day in whatever current WIP I am on, but there I was taking a week off.

I needed to sort out my head and detach myself from my main character’s headspace.

Bottom line was her headspace was making me depressed. I had created an imaginary emotional vampire and she was draining my reality.

I don’t know about other writers, but as I write, I have a tendency to dive into a character’s mind and make a home in it. I watch the world through their eyes and live life through their eyes.

In writing The Sound, I was delving into the depression that my character has yet to resolve or acknowledge. I was sliding into the depression she is trying so hard to repress.

Having battled my own bouts of depression, I did not want to battle hers.

The week off was a much needed relief and through it, I discovered a way for her to confront and battle hers. I was able to answer questions of why she did what she did. I was able to discover her root cause of depression and why she was so shut off from the world she lived in.

As I have said before, she is one of the darkest characters I have written, but she is also a part of me. She is a figment of my imagination of course, but she is also a part of my writing soul. She scares me because I fear that I may look in the mirror and see her broken spirit staring back at me. See her sadness and despair and think it is mine again.

It’s also a release to write for her as she is able to express what I cannot or could not express emotionally or mentally. She has no fear and I want to be like that.

As I write her, I hope to blaze a path for myself and I wonder if she fears looking in the mirror and seeing just a writer who hopes she got it all right.