It's something I've been guilty of myself and that I'm constantly looking out for, so I guess it makes it easier to pick up with other writers as well xD
It was hard because Hana was the kanji - she performed the act of writing it, her emotional landscape affected the characters shape and look, and the characters themselves stood on their own as indicators of emotion, ideas, thought, experience.
I loved that, to be honest (though got it without need for extra emphasis). There's a paragraph where it says just that, that the narrator was able to tell when Hana was angry, had been crying, etc, from the writing alone. I love that detail.
I forced myself today to run with a prompt to see if I still could!
I reckon it's like riding a bike ;)
It is like that. Especially how I write, in loops and going back and changing the narrative perspective to see what feels better etc. I wrote this in limited 3rd then thought the first person was better, then added her audience, then the ending came to me, then I added the French stuff - that's all a fun process to me.