(by Barbara Treick)

This is a photo I took during a writing session — and no, it wasn’t staged.
This is what I look like when a character’s fear becomes my own.

In this moment, I was writing Joan’s slow realization that something inside her is changing. That she can’t trust her memory the way she once did. That the little slips she tried to laugh off are becoming harder to explain. Harder to hide. Harder to outrun.

And while Joan is fictional, the emotion was very, very real.

I felt her fear settle into my shoulders.
I felt that tightness behind the eyes — the one that comes when you’re trying not to admit something that terrifies you.
I felt the question she couldn’t bring herself to speak:

“What if I don’t get to stay myself?”

That line, that feeling, stopped me cold.

I’ve written emotional scenes before. I’ve stepped into the shoes of characters facing loss, danger, love, wonder. But Joan’s fog… that was different. It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t loud. It was subtle, creeping, the kind of fear people carry alone until they can’t anymore.

And writing that meant admit that I have asked myself the same question. Are these normal memory lapses or the begining of something worse.

This photo was taken right after I took my fingers off the keyboard.
Eyes wet. Jaw tight. Breath caught somewhere in my chest.
No acting, no performance just the raw truth of stepping fully into a character’s shoes.

I didn’t share this to show sadness.
I shared it because this is what writing honestly looks like.

Joan’s journey matters to me.
Her fear matters to me.
Her dignity matters to me.

If I’m going to tell her story, I have to let myself walk beside her — even through the fog.

And sometimes… that means crying at my desk.

Or, in this case, in my chair with my computer and a scene that asked me to go deeper than I expected.

Thanks for walking this journey with me — the emotional, messy, beautiful parts of bringing The Leopard’s Mouth stories to life.