The Writing Life: Losing Yourself Part II

Losing Yourself Part I discussed the need to lose ourselves within the character whose point of view we’re writing in order to rise to the top of our writing craft and create characters that stay with readers for a lifetime. But how can we do that? What makes us afraid to sink ourselves deeply into a viewpoint different from our own? And how can we alleviate at least some of those fears?

No doubt, most of us have already discovered or are actively developing our own individual writing process by nailing down our best timeframe for writing, our favorite location, and deciding whether we prefer quiet or do our best work behind a bulwark raised against distractions. Having a set routine or method can enhance your ability to lose yourself. Try challenging your process from time to time by trying methods you might assume wouldn’t work for you. Some methods to try: Write before your day has started, soon after rising. Write after attending to the worries or tasks of your day. Meditate before writing. Exercise before writing to quiet your body and mind. Create a mantra or short mental perspective from the first person viewpoint of your character and repeat it to yourself several times before writing. Create a music playlist for any character you spend a lot of time writing and play it on repeat when writing that character.

When losing ourselves, we lose touch with the ‘real’ world as we immerse ourselves deeper into our work. Consider how the various elements of your individual process may hinder your ability to lose yourself in your character. For example, if you are writing in a public space, is fear for your personal safety a factor? Alleviate this fear by sitting with a friend, becoming known to staff, placing yourself with a wall to your back or out of the common flow of passers-by.

If writing at home as any type of caretaker, are you worried you’ll sink so deep you won’t hear your dependent? Place a baby/room monitor not only where it will be loud enough to ‘wake’ you, but within your line of sight if it has lights, ask others to invest in your writing by enlisting a family member or friend to baby/dependent sit on a regular basis, or invest in yourself by hiring a sitter.

Are you afraid you’ll lose track of time while you’re in character? This is a big one for me. I set an alarm. Sometimes I also ask a friend or my husband to set an alarm that reminds them to call me at a certain time.

Are you afraid you’ll start thinking or talking like your character, absorb less savory traits by association, or remain fuzzy-brained and distracted in the real world? Detach or ‘de-role’ from your character, just like many actors do. De-roling is another individual process we have to develop for ourselves. It can be physical or symbolic. You can literally shake off the role, verbally acknowledge the end of your session and say good-bye to your character, create your own personal mantra to repeat, close your eyes and mentally let go of your character before envisioning the remainder of your day and the people you’ll interact with, call a specific friend to report in on what you accomplished within your work that day, or always follow your session with the same entry back into your day, ie: wash your face, pick up your kids, walk the dog.

De-roling in a larger way after writing ‘The End’ at the completion of a project is also important. It lets us know that when we dig deep and lose ourselves, there’s an end point where we are just ourselves again. Plan this event in advance. It could be making cookies, doing a big clean of your living space, or even taking a weekend away.

Ultimately, the process of finding out what aids each of us in allowing ourselves to become our character or to de-role from our character at the end of the day comes down to trial and error. In the past, so many well-known writers used alcohol or drugs for these purposes that the ‘drunk writer’ has become a stereotype. All intoxicants have the unfortunate effect of hindering the brain’s ability to craft coherent writing or stick to a work schedule that might eventually pay the bills. The hard work of trying to re-capture those creative fireworks on paper, shape them into meaningful prose, or decipher and re-write any resulting story, in combination with the physical toll that kind of process takes on the human body has lead to the loss of many talented writers. Let’s all support each other in avoiding this route in search of our individual processes.

Try to think of the rush of losing yourself completely for even a little while as a reward in itself and definitely not a daily occurrence. But by setting yourself up to obtain that deepest level of writing by assessing your own process and alleviating your fears in advance, when you get there, you just might connect through your character to readers for centuries to come.

Please share your fears, solutions, or thoughts on losing yourself in your character! Join me on the first Friday of each month for exploration, discovery, and discussion of the writing life.