I am crazy.
My first realization of this was when I wrote a short story titled, "The Broken Window." As I recorded what happened to the protagonist, whose mental state is called to question, I discovered he had a profound effect on me. The terrible things that happened to him distressed me quite a bit, but the insanity came from more than just sympathizing for him.
He started to talk to me. It wasn't a communication of words, per se, nor was it a Fight Club-esque hallucination. As his own personality developed from the first few parts of the story, I felt as though his intersected with my own in some places. In the middle of writing it, I remember freaking out because I reacted to something in school in the way that he would have, rather than myself.
Needless to say, I was glad once I finally forced him into the paper, out of my head.
But this entire episode revisited my memory because of the packet we read, by Lamott. "Polaroids" talked about how characters come to life. They begin as blank ideas before turning into full fledged persons. They start wanting things on their own, doing things independently, and even rebelling. They become real, not just to the writer, but in actuality.
Now I know what you're thinking. "This kid's freakin' nuts!" And, I would wholeheartedly agree. Maybe you have to be crazy to be a writer; I don't know. What I do know is this: stories come to life. Maybe it can be explained away using the firing of certain neurons, but whatever causes this change doesn't matter. I'm stuck with it and so are my fellow writers.
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