As I expanded my main character’s backstory, I had a “creating from the heart” moment.
The character is an orphan child living in a dystopian society. She finds discarded items she thinks are useful, cleans them, and sometimes fixes them, then trades them for food. The adults accept the items and give her food. They never tell her the items aren’t actually useful.
Tears came to my eyes. I had hit something lost in deep time. I had flashbacks of doing this sort of thing in my childhood. I had forgotten. Now I remember. The memories hurt.
One of the risks of writing is sometimes you discover things about yourself. It’s moments like this, as I keep wiping tears off my keyboard, that I feel my writing is most powerful.