The worst thing about writing

Writing is widely considered to be a solitary, lonely act but I don't believe this is true. In the act of writing, the writer is surrounded by characters with whom s/he has developing intense relationships. They are fictional characters but so what: most characters we meet in the so-called "real world" are fictional as well. Why else would the nice man next door who tells all the funny jokes at the mail box and always has a sunny disposition end up being a serial killer? In the act of writing, the writer experiences intense emotions with evolving real spirits, his creations. There is nothing lonely about this.

The loneliness starts later, when the God role-playing ends, when the first draft is finished. At this moment, if all has gone mostly well, I experience an intense high -- like today, after writing FADE OUT. An intense high! But then it hit me: no one, absolutely no one, can share this with me because I, and only I, have the experience I've just finished. At this moment no one but I knows what the writing is about, knows who these characters are, knows what the emotions of their various journeys are, journeys on which I was beside them every step of the way. This is our trip alone, myself and my characters. No one else will know about them until later. Then, if I'm lucky, some sharing can begin.

So I can't share this high moment. And I hate that. Sure, I can babble about it but not without sounding like an egomaniac. Later, when others have met the characters, some will agree with my enthusiasm and some not but by then I'll have changed my mind about a number of things, a number of them, anyway. I'm already thinking of ways to change things, a few hours later. The intense high is long gone.

But it was that brief moment, right after FADE OUT, the intensity of that high, My God I did it!, I played God and created the clay and now I can begin the less mysterious process of shaping clay into something that many people can share, if I do the shaping right. And for a brief moment, a brief intense high, I knew I had done something important, something worth while -- but there was no one around to share this with, and even if someone, my most intimate friend, entered the room, I wouldn't know how to explain the experience just ended. FADE OUT, wow!, and then the fall back into reality, so-called, the first and most fragile and most mysterious part of the creative process over. And the rational act of rewriting begins.