Empathy

I'm an empath.  It's the reason I can't watch game shows or reality TV.  My stress and anxiety is palpable because I absorb what the people are feeling.  I didn't last one season of "Grey's Anatomy" because I sobbed every damn episode, and it wore me down.  The episode Bailey cried?  Yep.  Color me done.

Would love to watch "John Wick" because I love action movies and Keanu Reeves is brilliant.  But...*spoiler*...they kill the dog.  I never got over that.  I would have to skip over that part.  Can't seem to make myself watch it.

However...it helps me as an author.

I'm in each scene.  I AM the scene.  Every action and reaction.  Each character's happiness, fear, hope, and uncertainty.  I need to feel it to make the reader feel it.  Sometimes I need to step away from the laptop.  Push back away from the heavier emotions.  I've made myself cry more than once.  Laugh more than once.  Been so mad at a character I wanted to meet them outside to throw hands.  😑 😄  

That's the life.  The investment.  I can't imagine wanting to do anything else.  I don't want to.  

Going to sit down with my Mercenary Girl this morning.  Writing a scene that occurs later in the book.  Not pretty.  But we'll make it.

Always writing*