…is that we
think too much. We overthink, we think things through, we try to see things
from every possible angle. We like to know what other people think, we watch
people, we even eavesdrop on stranger’s conversations. We ask ourselves a
million questions when we meet someone, but we still mostly want to know what
that person thinks right then. At least, I do. Do you? I guess so.
We try to
control situations by giving characters in our stories some meaning; a point in
their being.
But that’s
fictional, it all is. It’s not real. Real life is a challenge. Feelings aren’t
as shiny as they are described in your favorite love stories. Meeting your
significant other isn’t always like fireworks. Love isn’t easy. The made-up
conflicts from your story suddenly become your conflict. And that’s the mean
thing. That’s what sucks.
Conflicts.
You have them every day in real life. You have to deal with them. And you put
them on characters and let them deal with them to get the story going. You
solve the whole thing within the story and at the end there’s most likely a
happy ending.
But what do
you do when it’s not a story anymore? When fiction becomes reality? When you
can’t control the outcome anymore because it’s not a story you write. You don’t
know what every individual thinks, you don’t control the situation. You have to
wait on their actions.
So for me
being a writer is to deal with problems, dumping problems on characters, and
not knowing how to deal with them when they’re dumped on me. I love to write
and I love to read, but I hate real life problems that are pretty easy to solve
if there weren’t the other people who might think God knows what. It would be
nice if it’d be as easy as solving a character’s problem in a book.
