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“One ought only to write when one leaves a piece of one’s own flesh in the inkpot, each time one dips one’s pen.” Leo Tolstoy

If the above quote is correct than I’m doing something very right with this latest Anita Blake novel, because it’s tearing me apart. At the end of the day I feel like the office should be a battlefield with my blood splashed across the keyboard, dripping from the monitor. There should be bits of skin and hair and flesh at the scene of the horror like a C.S.I. episode. Why is this book so hard?

I guess there are a lot of reasons, but the main one is that the last book was hard for both my main character and me. Anita got the emotional shit kicked out of her, and because of the kind of writer I am, so did I. Some writers seem to be able to write the most horrible things and remain untouched. They’re like actors that can cry on command, then turn it off like a faucet, and it seems to mean just about as much to them as turning a handle. Then you have the actors that have to descend into the depths to bring the pain up for the camera, but it’s real pain they show on film, their own pain. I’m the second kind of artist. I’ve cried with and for, my characters. I’ve screamed at my computer, cursed other characters, fought and lost to them. But I feel when I write, it is not a cold process to me.

Some very successful writers don’t seem to feel that emotional connection to their work, or at least not to the degree I do. I used to envy them until I realized the price of that cool distance. They write like they feel with less depth, less of themselves on the page. It is a safer way to write, less frightening, less hurtful, less pain for the writer, but the writing shows that. I can read most other writers and tell you within a few pages which of them “feels” strongly when they write and which do not. Now, some can fake it better than others, but in the end it is a fake. They don’t believe in their own work, their own world, their own characters. They know that the skin of let’s pretend is there, always, they never let themselves sink past a certain point, or perhaps their world, their muse, their imagination is more shallow than mine. Maybe there are no painful depths to explore and they just spend their careers wading through the shallows because no matter how wide the water looks, it’s just a wading pool with no unexpected holes to swallow the writer up, and drown them in the dark water of their own minds.

I’m one of the few writers that routinely calls my characters, imaginary friends. Like any good friend when they hurt, a little bit of you hurts, but when you’re there for the tragedy, to see it, feel it, smell it, taste it, wipe the tears away, hold them while they scream, well, you don’t forget days like that. I don’t forget them when the person I’m holding is flesh and blood, and I don’t forget when there’s no real body to hold, but my own imagination made so real that I reach out to comfort someone I can never touch, because they aren’t really there. But sometimes the feel of them is so real, so close, that it seems wrong that I cannot breech that last barrier.

For me, as a writer, if I do not feel than I’m doing something wrong. If my character’s sorrow does not make me cry, if their pain does not make me hurt, if their terror does not make me jump, if their lust does not make me shiver with delight, if their laughter does not make me smile, or even laugh out loud, then I’m not doing my job.

The way I write is not for everyone, God knows, but for me it’s the only way I know. It’s the way I’ve always written. It is not a safe way to do this job, but when I dance with the muse it is always a thing of battles, and violence; shared pain and joy. Right now Anita is hurting and so am I, the only thing I can try to do is to keep her pain off of my “real” life, and my pain off of hers. Her problems are not mine, and mine are not hers. Some separation must remain or we will both go mad. Or maybe we’ll simply weep.