Vulnerability and the Writer #iamwriting #areyoureading?

If you write fiction, getting in touch with your feelings is a necessity. However, getting to them can be a walk with terror. Think of how many feelings you experience in one day. I started out today scared of my heart because it wants to swing into tachycardia and the medicine I am on doesn't seem to be working. I walked into the living room and swung into excitement when I saw our Christmas tree. After that, I headed into the kitchen and poured myself a cup of coffee my husband had just made. At the first sip came satisfaction.

Vulnerability is the place where you translate your emotions and experiences onto ink and paper. If you wish your novel to be powerful you have to take yourself out of you and put yourself onto paper. In Innocent Blood one reader commented that she hated the mother. Those feelings the mother had were my own and I had to accept that not everyone feels the way I do and that's okay. That's being vulnerable.

Feelings are hard to deal with but fortunately everyone has them. Even that Facebook friend you have that always seems so sure of her/himself has been vulnerable. They just don't take the time to realize it. That, of course, harbors on them not being a psychopath. We've all felt love, passion, hate, fear, happiness and the rest, and if you are good enough you can translate that experience into a novel where you can make the reader angry, happy or sad.

Creation requires vulnerability. The hardest part is handing off that manuscript for someone else to read. Will they like it? Hate it? Laugh at it? Not everyone likes vulnerability in their characters now-a-days. Some are into the kick-ass heroine whose only emotion is that of hit first and ask questions later.  True vulnerability comes with the courage a character shows by walking their walk. Some people won't like what you write, others will love it and still others absolutely hate everything about a character  that you've chosen to show. It is at that point the writer must suck it up and get on with the next book.

Vulnerability is not a weakness. Creative people are more sensitive because they venture inside, into places most people don't go.  A cave diver finds his or her joy in a new discovery, a writer in discovering themselves and sharing that experience with others regardless of what they think or say.

So take heart and continue to write on.