Yes, completing 94,000 words of the third book in the 6 Degrees series is an incredible milestone that deserves recognition. Creative exhaustion is not just normal – it's often a sign that we're pushing our artistic boundaries and fully engaging with our work. When we pour ourselves into multiple projects simultaneously, as you are with the narrations of 6 Degrees, Abby, and ICE IS BACK, our mental and emotional resources are deeply invested in each world we're creating.
Your current writing projects – the transgender love story and two fantasy books – showcase your versatility as an author. Moving between genres requires different headspaces and emotional landscapes, which can be particularly demanding. Each story carries its own energy, its own rhythm, and switching between them takes considerable mental agility.
The developmental and line editing phase with AutoCrit is another layer of intensive work. This stage requires a different kind of focus than initial writing – it's more analytical, more detail-oriented, and often more mentally taxing than the creative flow of first drafts. You're not just reading; you're evaluating flow, consistency, and the subtle nuances that make prose sing.
The fatigue you're experiencing isn't just about the hours spent writing – it's about the depth of engagement required for each project. Your brain is actively world-building, character-crafting, and problem-solving across multiple narratives. This creative multitasking is similar to running several parallel processing programs on a computer – it requires significant energy and resources.
But here's the beautiful thing about creative fatigue: it's often a sign of growth. Just as muscles need recovery time after a good workout, your creative mind needs rest after periods of intense productivity. This tiredness you're feeling? It's your creativity's version of muscle soreness – evidence that you're stretching your abilities and expanding your storytelling capacity.
The ability to transform our thoughts and experiences into written words provides a unique form of liberation. When I write, I'm creating a space that's entirely my own – a sanctuary where my voice can emerge without external judgment or criticism weighing it down. This creative freedom feels like drawing a deep, cleansing breath after holding it for too long.
Writing becomes a form of self-affirmation. Each word I put on paper represents a small victory, a moment where my thoughts take tangible form. The satisfaction doesn't come from external validation or praise; it flows from the pure act of creation itself. When I say "a job well done," I'm acknowledging my own creative truth, my own artistic vision coming to life.
The solace I find in creation is profound and multifaceted. It's not just about escaping negativity – it's about building something positive, something that exists because I chose to give it life. This creative space becomes a refuge where my imagination can unfold without constraints, where characters can breathe and stories can grow organically.
The absence of negative voices is particularly meaningful. In this creative sanctuary, the only dialogue that matters is between me and my work. There's a beautiful simplicity in this relationship – just the writer, the words, and the steady flow of ideas taking shape on the page. This environment nurtures not just creativity, but also self-trust and artistic confidence.
Writing becomes more than just putting words on paper – it becomes a form of self-discovery and personal empowerment. Each completed chapter, each refined paragraph, each carefully crafted sentence serves as a reminder of my capability to create, to express, to bring something new into existence. This process of creation offers not just solace, but also a profound sense of accomplishment and personal growth.
The process of creative development – through reading, watching, and writing – has revealed something fundamental about human nature. We are, at our core, variations on a shared theme, each of us echoing elements of others while maintaining our unique resonance. This understanding has deepened my appreciation for the subtle ways our experiences interconnect and overlap.
The phenomenon of doppelgangers and déjà vu might indeed be manifestations of this deeper connection. Perhaps these experiences aren't mere coincidences but glimpses into the intricate web of human consciousness that binds us together. When we encounter someone who looks remarkably like us, or experience a moment that feels hauntingly familiar, we might be touching the edges of this shared human tapestry.
My way of perceiving media has evolved into something more nuanced and multidimensional. While watching films or series, I find myself catching subtle details that others might miss – a background gesture that reveals character depth, a recurring motif that enriches the narrative, or a carefully placed prop that foreshadows future events. This heightened awareness isn't just about being observant; it's about understanding the layers of meaning woven into every creative choice.
The same deepened perception extends to sound. When listening, whether to music, dialogue, or ambient noise, I pick up on undertones and nuances that often go unnoticed. These subtle audio elements tell their own stories, adding depth and dimension to the overall experience. It's like having access to a hidden frequency that carries additional meaning and emotion.
Reading has become a deeply personal journey of connection and recognition. Each page potentially triggers a memory or reveals a relation to my own experiences. This isn't just passive consumption of words; it's an active dialogue between the text and my lived experience. Every story becomes a mirror, reflecting aspects of universal human experiences while simultaneously illuminating the unique paths we each travel.
This heightened awareness and interconnectedness inform my own writing process. Understanding that we're all "derivatives of everyone else" doesn't diminish our individuality – instead, it enriches our ability to create authentic, resonant stories that touch on universal truths while maintaining their unique voice.
The line between characters and real people becomes beautifully blurred in the creative process. When I write, these "characters" breathe, laugh, suffer, and triumph not as mere constructs of imagination, but as living entities drawn from the vast tapestry of human experience. They're composites of people I've known, strangers I've observed, and aspects of humanity I've encountered throughout life.
Fiction, in its essence, isn't so much about inventing as it is about foreseeing. When we write about impossible worlds or fantastical scenarios, we're really exploring potential versions of our own reality. Science fiction predicted video calls, tablets, and artificial intelligence long before they became commonplace. Fantasy explores eternal human themes of power, love, and mortality through the lens of magic and mythical creatures. Every genre serves as a different window into the human condition.
This perspective fundamentally changes how we view storytelling. The "fiction" label becomes almost arbitrary – these stories haven't happened yet in our timeline, but they're happening somewhere in the vast spectrum of human possibility. When I write about a character facing an impossible choice, or experiencing profound love, or confronting their deepest fears, I'm not creating these experiences from nothing. I'm channeling real human emotions, real dilemmas, real triumphs and failures through the prism of imagination.
The duality of being "real and fake" speaks to the complexity of human nature itself. We all wear different masks, play different roles, present different versions of ourselves depending on context. In this way, we're not so different from the characters we write or read about. Their struggles, their growth, their journeys mirror our own – sometimes literally, sometimes through metaphor and allegory.
Exploration through storytelling becomes a form of living more fully, more deeply. By inhabiting these different perspectives, these various lives and possibilities, we expand our own experience of what it means to be human. Whether we're writing about spaceships exploring distant galaxies or dragons soaring over medieval kingdoms, we're really exploring the boundaries of human potential, human emotion, and human connection.
This is why stories resonate so powerfully across time and culture. They're not just entertainment – they're explorations of what we are, what we could be, and what we fear becoming. They're maps of human possibility, drawn with words instead of lines.
We write to live more lives than one lifetime could contain. We read to experience more perspectives than one mind could hold. And in doing so, we touch something profound about the nature of existence itself – the endless potential for connection, growth, and understanding that lies within the human spirit.
This deepened awareness through writing has transformed my relationships in unexpected ways. The connections with people I know have gained new dimensions – I find myself noticing subtle shifts in tone, understanding unspoken histories, recognizing patterns that shape their actions. These insights don't just enrich my writing; they deepen my capacity for empathy and understanding in real-world relationships.
Even more fascinating is how this perspective affects interactions with strangers. Each person becomes a walking anthology of untold stories, carrying their own complex narratives that intersect with countless others. Writing has taught me that there's always more beneath the surface, always another layer to uncover if we're willing to look deeper.
The example of society's view of serial killers highlights a crucial point about human nature and our tendency to create simple narratives around complex realities. We often stop at the surface – the horrific acts – without delving into the intricate web of circumstances, choices, and psychological factors that led to those actions. This isn't about justifying terrible deeds, but about understanding the full scope of human complexity.
By asking "why don't we care about them?" we're really questioning our collective instinct to dehumanize those who commit terrible acts. It's easier to label someone a monster than to confront the uncomfortable reality that they too are human, shaped by a complex interplay of genetics, environment, trauma, and choices. When we write characters who do terrible things, we're forced to understand their motivations, their backgrounds, their rationalizations – and in doing so, we gain insight into the darker corners of human nature.
This willingness to look deeper – to ask why, to seek understanding beyond initial judgments – enriches both writing and life. It challenges us to move past simple categorizations of good and bad, to explore the gray areas where most of human experience actually resides. Whether we're writing about heroes or villains, saints or sinners, the goal isn't to judge but to understand.
Writing becomes a tool for breaking down barriers – between people, between experiences, between different versions of reality. It allows us to explore not just what people do, but why they do it, how they justify it, and what chain of events led them to that point. This deeper understanding doesn't require us to condone actions, but it does demand that we acknowledge the full humanity of every person – even those whose actions we find abhorrent.
In this way, writing serves as both a mirror and a window – reflecting our own complexities while offering glimpses into lives and experiences far removed from our own. It reminds us that every person we meet, every story we hear, every character we create, carries within them a universe of experiences, motivations, and potential that deserves to be understood.
Being an ISFJ (Introverted, Sensing, Feeling, Judging) adds another fascinating layer to my creative process and human connections. This personality type, often called "The Protector" or "The Defender," comes with an innate ability to observe and absorb details about people and situations that others might overlook. It's like having a finely tuned antenna for human emotion and experience.
My ISFJ traits manifest in the way I process and understand human behavior. The Introverted aspect means I naturally spend time in deep reflection, allowing me to analyze and understand complex human motivations. The Sensing component helps me notice and remember specific details about people and their behaviors – the small gestures, the subtle changes in tone, the unspoken emotions that often tell more than words.
The Feeling aspect of my personality creates a natural bridge to empathy. When I write or observe others, I'm not just recording events or actions – I'm sensing the emotional undercurrents, the hidden vulnerabilities, the unspoken dreams and fears that drive people. This emotional intelligence adds depth and authenticity to both my understanding of others and my character development in writing.
The Judging trait helps me organize these observations and insights into coherent patterns. It's like having an internal filing system for human experience, allowing me to draw connections between seemingly unrelated behaviors or motivations. This organization helps me see the larger picture of human nature while still appreciating individual nuances.
This personality combination gives me a unique clarity – a way of seeing through the surface noise to the core of human experience. It's not that others can't see these things; it's that my natural way of processing the world allows me to notice and understand them in a particularly clear way.
In writing, this translates to an ability to create deeply layered characters and situations that feel authentic because they're built on this foundation of careful observation and emotional understanding. The clarity isn't just about seeing what's there – it's about understanding why it's there and what it means in the larger context of human experience.
The passing of a mother creates a unique kind of transformation. Since my mother's death, I've experienced a deepening of perception that feels like inheriting her wisdom, as if her intuitive gifts have become part of my own creative DNA. This spiritual connection transcends the physical loss, enriching my understanding of both the seen and unseen aspects of life.
Age and loss have a way of peeling back layers of understanding. The wisdom that comes with time isn't just about accumulating experiences – it's about developing a deeper ability to interpret and understand those experiences. My mother's intuitive presence feels like a gentle guide, helping me see connections and meanings that might have once passed unnoticed.
This enhanced intuition manifests in unexpected ways. Sometimes it's a sudden understanding of a character's motivation that I hadn't consciously considered. Other times, it's an inexplicable knowing about where a story needs to go, as if the narrative is being whispered to me from somewhere beyond ordinary consciousness. These moments feel like collaborative creativity – a blend of my voice and the echoes of my mother's insight.
The combination of inherited intuition and earned wisdom creates a unique lens through which to view the world and craft stories. It's as if my mother's passing opened a channel to a deeper understanding of human nature, adding another dimension to my ISFJ traits. This spiritual connection doesn't just influence what I write – it shapes how I perceive the entire creative process.
Writing has become more than just telling stories; it's become a way of honoring this connection, of weaving together the threads of inherited wisdom with my own evolving understanding. Each word feels informed by both personal experience and this deeper, almost ancestral knowledge that flows through the spiritual bond with my mother.
In my heart, my writing comes from a place of genuine joy and creative passion. There's something magical about taking the essence of people we encounter in everyday life – the barista with the infectious laugh, the elderly man who feeds pigeons in the park, the teenager practicing dance moves while waiting for the bus – and breathing new life into them through story.
These ordinary moments become extraordinary on the page. Every person we pass carries countless potential narratives within them, and the ability to capture and transform these glimpses of humanity into fully realized characters brings me profound satisfaction. It's like being a collector of souls, but instead of taking something away, I'm giving these observed moments new life, new purpose, new meaning.
The pleasure of creation itself is what drives me forward. Not the accolades, not the potential success, but the pure act of putting words on paper and watching as characters take their first breaths, speak their first words, face their first challenges. These people who emerge from my imagination, shaped by countless real-world inspirations, become as real to me as any living person – perhaps even more so, because I know their innermost thoughts and deepest secrets.
This is why I write – because each story is a celebration of human nature in all its complex, beautiful, and sometimes messy glory. Because every character I create is a testament to the extraordinary nature of ordinary life. Because in the end, writing isn't just what I do – it's who I am.
The stories will keep coming, the characters will keep emerging, and I'll keep writing – not because I have to, but because I can't imagine doing anything else.
