Writing in 3D

Coming soon!

My writing mentor and I have had discussions about “being in the zone.” This is a phrase I’ve heard often in writing circles. It’s that place where we are totally absorbed in the words we write, a feeling as if we are actually living out the scene. This morning I thought a better term for this phenomenon is writing in 3D. Up close and personal with the characters, the setting, the action, the emotions, and invested in every second.

Yesterday in writing a critical scene, one filled with emotion that tore at my heart, I was transported to that point of writing in 3D. The words just kept pouring out. I knew what my main character felt, what the secondary character felt, the tension, the pain, the unveiling of truth. I wrote until the emotions so overpowered me I needed to step away and breathe.

It’s a good place to stop even if it is in the middle of a major scene. Why? We need to distance ourselves for our own health! At least, I do. I need a break. The scene keeps fresh in my mind and I’m unable to let it go entirely. This allows me to step back into the scene, rested, and ready to move the story forward.

I understand many people love to read and often think they could write a book. Believe me it isn’t as easy they might think. Writing is hard work. Good writing reaches deep inside our soul and pulls at the pain stuffed into tightly sealed rooms and pours out into various scenes in a new way. It’s a relieving of some things we thought we had let go of long ago. So it’s true a reader will find pieces of the author in each of their books. Not that the same things have happened, but moments where those same feelings once existed and bleed into the story.

Yesterday I posted on my Facebook Author Page about needing a hug after I stepped away from the scene I’d been writing. If you aren’t connected yet to my Facebook Page “Books by Carol Ann,” I am inviting you to look me up and either follow or like to keep up with the latest news and book releases. Maybe you can even give me a hug there!