real feelings for a ficticious world

remember near the end of Basic Instinct, when Catherine Tramell finished writing her book and was crying? at the time I was 18 years old and not yet a fiction writer on the side. i didn't know until now that when you write a novel or a story, you fall in love with some of the characters. you developed them, helped them grow, punished them when they screwed up, and patted them on the heads when they made things right. i, like the ficticious Sharon Stone character and like so many writers out there, just finished my first short story and feel empty, not knowing what to do with myself, with all this emotion that was invested over the last 5 years of writing this one stupid story. and now that it's over, i'm heartbroken. i want the characters back, but unfortunately i killed them off. there will be no sequel. i finished the story this morning and i cried a little bit. but to be honest, five years was too much for such a little story. a blip on the map that occupied significant brain real estate for me, and it needed to end. which is why i killed them all.

amazingly, as soon as i had a mental wake for the family in the story, a new story started to bud...

so now i know why people keep writing.