Do we need a sympathetic villain?

I feel like that’s something storytellers have been taught…and I’m just not so sure it’s necessary. And I really do mean I’m not sure. I don’t have an answer. All I know is that I have the question.

Do villains need to be SYMPATHETIC?

They certainly need to make sense. Their logic certainly needs to make sense, even if their entire point is that they’re crazy. Their “world” must make sense. But…do we need to empathize with them? I don’t know. I’m going to noodle on that one.

I wrote every single day this week. All of my sessions except for the one where my two normal places to hide away and write were full of people at work and I allowed that to really throw me off. It would have been a perfect week, something that’s never happened.

Here’s the thing: I feel overwhelmed about it. I’m not used to it. That much work…shakes my confidence. I feel like maybe I’m moving too fast. I’ve done too much. I’m losing control.

I’m not.

But it feels like that. I have faith this feeling of panic will subside with another several weeks of “full writing.” Intellectually, and even emotionally whilst I’m actually writing, I can tell things are different. My writing sessions are different. My mindset is different. But I’m still afraid. I’m still not confident.

Confidence is repeated positive result.

I heard that in a basketball game. I think it’s from some coach. I wonder if that’s true. It sounds like an outside-in view. But, I’ve been there. Positive results or feedback have absolutely given me confidence before, now, and will continue to. Then again, what was it that I had before the positive feedback that enabled me to do something that earned me positive feedback? Was that not an inner confidence? Bit of the chicken and egg, there.

But I do have faith that positive weeks like this week will give me more confidence that I can write every day, that I am not going to fast, and that writing this book is not so scary.

One step at a time.

It was a good week this week.