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Ponderosa5
857 M Little Steps 1
PathStep 8 Compassion hearts93 Forum posts7 Forum upvotes4 Current upvotes4 Age GroupAdult Last activeJuly, 2024 Member sinceAugust 23, 2020
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Writing heavy subjects without triggering yourself?
Reading & Writing / by Ponderosa5
Last post
 September 26th, 2023
...See more Back during Camp NaNoWriMo in April I wrote what I hoped would be a very impactful death scene for a young character who was...not actually that close to my protagonist, but very close to one of the protag's friends. I got super stuck right afterwards; every time I went back to work on the novel I would go back and read that scene and just feel sad. I kept writing until the end of the month but got mired in small talk and description; the character's death was supposed to heighten the protagonist's emotional investment in the plot but I just had a really hard time moving on from that scene. Now I've been working on something different and one of the characters is...not in a good headspace at all. He's going on vacation and about to meet the love of his life, but he's Been Through A Lot and is fairly depressed and might also have PTSD (I haven't really decided yet). Even though his traumatic experiences are totally unrelated to mine, some of the feelings do carry over to some extent, and it's...a little TOO easy to see myself in his situation. Work's super stressful right now as well, but I'm feeling fragile and sensitive and worried about how my writing might be contributing instead of helping. I get a lot of story ideas that are kind of intense and I hope they'll be cathartic or help me process my feelings in some way, but maybe they're just keeping me stuck? Anyone else? I really want to write both of these stories but I also need to, like, be okay...
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