Recently a friend finished Book 5 of Game of Thrones, and expressed the sense of abandonment she was feeling. Abandonment is a strong feeling to have about a book. But I find that in my experience, abandonment, loneliness, and anger have all been feelings I’ve felt when I got to the end of something really, really good.

When I was six years old, I got to the end of a Peanuts book before I was ready for it to be over. I was so angry I bit the book. When I yanked the book out from between my teeth to throw it across the room, I pulled a tooth out with it. Six years old, and full of self-destructive fury that a pleasant visit to another world was finished. I kept the book for years, proud of my tiny rage.

Last month I listened to the Audible version of The Devil Wears Prada. It was a good book. I wouldn’t normally call it “great,” because it didn’t move me to tears or other deep emotions. But I think that might be selling it short. What it did do was have me in a state of anxiety for the entire 2+ weeks I was listening to it.

The heroine is in a slow downward spiral. Her demanding boss keeps consuming more and more of her time and energy. She loses her good relationships with her friends and family, and loses her boyfriend entirely.

I started a new job a couple months ago, and my time is very different than it was when I was writing full-time. I do worry from time to time that I’m not taking good enough care of my man because I’m away from home for so long. He tells me he’s fine and don’t be silly, but I still fret, occasionally. But while I was listening to Devil Wears Prada, I was in a LATHER the entire time.

I made him dinner. Nice dinner. And breakfast, every morning. I never make him breakfast. I don’t have time to make him breakfast. But somehow, while listening to our heroine destroy her life, for 2+ weeks I had a hot meal in front of my fiancé every single morning. Her destructive path bled anxiety into my world so pervasively I was on high-alert to express my love and attention.

I guess it may have been a great book after all. If it can create those kinds of behavior changes, just from the bleed-over, it was doing something right.

As a writer, I can only hope to become able to create worlds so consuming. Worlds that change you, that flavor everything you see during the time you live there. I’ll keep trying.