Intensity, Borderline Personality Disorders and Character Creation

The writer in me experiences many, many personality disorders in designing and growing characters I use in my books. I don't always have more than a kernel of that disorder, but sometimes, these can hit me square in the middle of my chest and I feel like a bug stuck on a pin in a collection, retired in a drawer at a museum. I can't escape the pain of knowing there's a big part of me in that character's flawed side, not their good side.

My new release involves the relationship between two high-intensity individuals. What might be a turnoff for one person in a relationship, becomes something totally attractive to another. In the beginning, neither one knows if they can trust their own judgment. They both have histories of making bad choices. In the end, they actually do know each other better than they thought, they rely on instincts that serve them well. There is always the Happily Ever After, of course, or it wouldn't be a romance.

"Here, rising from the stupor of a love-lust indulgence, his heart still racing with the intensity of their lovemaking, becoming as close as he possibly could be to her, this magical angel who had stumbled into his life, he had no defense. Nor did he seek cover. He was as engaged as he could be without wearing her skin. But even that he would do if it would bring him more of the pleasure of her being."

I try not to show it, but I have a high intensity life and lifestyle. There are times when this serves me, and others when it can be destructive. I show up for both. I pay attention to both.

I can remember sitting at dinner during my college years, and someone was asking me why I analyzed people so much. "Why not just accept them for who they are?" I looked in horror at that person. It was like I was being asked why I breathed.

I suspect everyone does their own private analytical version, but perhaps some on a more subconscious level than others. I use them to create the thread of the personalities in the stories I write, so it is front and center for me. And yes, I make up stories all the time about people, which doesn't cause me a problem, unless it is someone I'm very close to and I'm wrong.

So, walking that tightrope of personality disorder, addiction to adrenaline and intensity, bleeds over into my personal life as well. I think writers, actors and other artists tend to have this happen to them frequently. I don't call it an occupational hazard. It's that we live in several different worlds, not just one. One world would not work for me. It would be boring. And none of them are less "real," whatever that means.

Do I have to become like the character inside to write him or her? Does an actor need to become that person when they act? Or, is it possible to know the difference between where I stop and the character begins? And does it matter?


I guess that's what keeps me writing. I get to live in this character, in their world for a bit. I dress it up, dash it, reorganize it and then present it with a neat little bow, all put together the way the pieces should in a 1000 piece puzzle. I get to answer the question, "What if..." like I did the first time I wrote a story.

And I learn to have patience with myself and the process. I take off my robes of many colors and decompress, until the next fantasy. Now, isn't that all real, after all?

https://youtu.be/HjCSGhcywRc

Writing With My Hair On Fire

Well, Alex has been having his way with me now for about a week. I've been dancing around him, hiding, and he's found me. It's all because my story has been supressed too long because I've been traveling, and doing other things.

I was answering some emails for my Newsletter (are you a subscriber yet???) and something hit me. I fall in love several times a year with new characters. I mean I do have a mental affair with them. Full on. Yup. And when the book is done, they have left me.

I'm very sensitive about the leaving part because I'm not a quitter. I hate people who quit. Sometimes I should do more of it, but I've been mourning the death of my last hero, and Alex has been bringing me flowers (mentally) and coming to bed with me in my dreams and dang it. SO THAT'S WHAT'S BEEN WRONG WITH ME.

I picked up this book about an erotic journal written that the heroine reads, and she is pulled into the journal-owner's story, until it abruptly ends. I'm not going to tell you the name of the book, because I can't recommend it - but I bought it because I have a story with some similar elements, Be With Me. It's about a woman who works in an antique bookstore and has an increasingly real encounter with a 19th Century British explorer. Oh those scenes at the Waterwheel Inn in Kenwood are so damned real, he comes to me, with his handlebar moustache, when I'm swimming nekked in the steamy pool at midnight.

And then it hit me. There is this character sneaking up on me, stalking me, and trying to get hold of my heart, and I've been shutting him out.

I love my rich fantasy life, because it's better than real life sometimes. I go there whenever I can. I like creating the stories as much as reading others, but since I'm a slow reader and a fast writer, it works better for me to make up my own stories.

So now I've got this Alex guy hanging around my desk, whispering in my ear, laughing at how manic I become sometimes. He has told me he'll help me get over the last hero who left me. Because that's what goes on in the heart and brain of this crazy writer. I fall in love, and they ALWAYS leave me.

But now I've discovered the cure: find another fantasy lover. And just like my original Date with Daniel some 6 years ago (an exercise to help me fall back in love with my first hero when I'd fallen for the bad guy), my time with Alex is promising. He's an adrenaline junkie. He likes strong coffee, loves to sky dive. Loves demolition derbys and loves working in the garden with me. In fact, we picked out two tomato plants, some broccoli, kale and some sweet peas. And he made me order Sweet Potatoes from the catalog along with red "sugar" cherry tomato seeds.

I'm listening to romantic Italian music from the 1930's and who knows, maybe I'll go back to that ship in India and go visit the Captain when he stops by the Waterwheel Inn to check on his journal. And then I hear the gypsy music in Prague and I'm all about the vampires again. Oh, what's a girl to do?