Am I Losing It, Or Is This How It’s Supposed To Be?

I honestly think I might be losing my mind. I am so lost in the book I’m writing that it is affecting me emotionally. I wonder if that happens to actors when they “get into” the role they are playing. The last few days I have been a little down and unsure of the book I’m working on – and suddenly I am jumping-up-and-down happy and positive again.

I figured out why. For the last few days I’ve been working on a part of the book where hero and heroine are apart. He is very worried about her health, and she is (always) worried about him because he’s a U.S. Marshal in the unsettled Territory of Oklahoma. While they were apart, I was low. Now I am at the point where he’s coming back, and all I can think about is “he’s coming back to me!” And I’m happy again because they get to be together.

Am I crazy? Is old age making my brain live in another time and another world? This book is turning me into a maniac! I don’t care about time or housework or the bookwork I do for the family business. I only care about getting back to this book. It has become all-consuming. My poor husband hardly sees me anymore because the minute I get home, I’m back in my office writing. I come out only long enough to make supper and then I’m gone again. I haven’t watched TV since I don’t know when and I’m not even interested in watching TV! I haven’t read a newspaper, a magazine … nothing. I only write. We spent 6 weeks in Vegas, and I did no lying around. I wrote over 200 pages while I was supposed to be relaxing.

Not since my first six Savage Destiny books have I been this much of an idiot over my writing. I was a nut then, too. I was totally, completely absorbed in my hero and heroine and what was happening with them. It’s a miracle I’m alive because when I drive I hardly know where I am. My brain is always working on the next chapter, and the next and the next. I am out west somewhere in a covered wagon or involved in a shootout instead of on the interstate headed for a mall. Hey, I’m a BIG TIME shopper – and I haven’t even wanted to go shopping! When we came home from Vegas my husband wouldn’t let me drive because he knows how I get and knew his life would be in danger if I was behind the wheel! I’m worse than an alcoholic! I’m a WRITE-a-holic!

This has to stop, but I don’t know how to stop it. I try, but it doesn’t work. I eat and sleep and dream this book. Yes, it must be happening. This old lady is losing her mind! She’s 20 years old again and walking across the prairie. Right now she’s in Guthrie, Oklahoma waiting for her husband to return. I hope when he gets back and things get settled I can get back to normal in my own “real” world. Trouble is, I don’t want to leave these people! This book might turn out a thousand pages long because I just want to go on and on.

Not only am I completely immersed in this book, but I am also thinking about the next one – and yet another one I already have planned. I have 6 or 7 ideas going right now for future books. I wish there were 10 of me. Then I’d REALLY be prolific! And I wouldn’t be so dang worn out!!

Such is the life of a writer.