When I’m stuck away from my studio it often leaves me reinventing scenes. No, I don’t have my ~300 pages memorized. It’s a helpful to flex your muscles on a scene without all the notes, and junk. Notes are important, but not everything. Stepping away from the papers can help your characters become people. To imagine them interacting in the context of a loosely remembered scene is to set them free. Characters have to ‘live’ to become ‘real’. They can be flawlessly planned, but that distances them from our flawed humanity. When you can let go of the reigns they can become so much more than any amount of planning can account for.

I, of course, won’t get into the exact situation here. Mena is discovering new feelings about a particular person. These emotions wouldn’t have come to the surface had I not explored this scene without my notes. It’s so odd to me. I love my notes. They help me remember all the minute details and decisions that go into such a large scale project. They make me feel safe. It’s not really safe though. It’s just consistent. It’s also too careful to feel real. I like my stories and characters to feel life like…. but doesn’t every creator wish to be a god?