To write stories …
To be the ruler of your own private universe. To create and destroy willy-nilly.
To mix and mold looks, habits, personality traits, psyches, clothes, ages, likes, and dislikes into characters of your own choosing. To force them to play their parts in dramatic adventures, again picked by you! To send people down paths you would never dare take; pose them with impossible choices and have them go for the option that requires a kind of grit and devil-may-care-attitude you so wish to possess in real life. To see them fail, or succeed, based strengths and weaknesses you have given them. And when they do fail: teach them a lesson. Pour out all your anger and frustration; literally snuff out some character that embodies all that you see wrong in this world. Make that sucker pay!
Create!
Rule!
Until that moment comes, when those very same characters—figments of your imagination—start putting up a fight: “No way, you can’t make me do that! It’s just not me!” Like that bad guy you popped on page 194; he might not voluntarily leave your story. And, he may not give a toss about your moral code. He just wants to see the world burn. Or, could he change?! Learn from his mistakes, make amends, sacrifice himself for the greater good? Maybe he marries the daughter of the slaughterer he slaughtered and opens a butcher’s shop in Hoboken? Could happen!
When someone conceived in a Word file stirs feelings in you, the creator, as were they flesh and blood, and old friends… That’s when the art of writing really has become an elaborate dance. Who leads? You, or your creation?
They say it’s cathartic to read; try writing! I (that is we) mean, forget about it!
It’s a legit, prescription free, healthy outlet for the mad scientist within. Let that deranged madman, or woman, run free to change the world, and make it a better and funnier place for us all! ?
See you in The Meantime