All this time I had believed that a writer writes stories. How silly is that? It just happens to be where I am at this moment. Looking backward as I've done at the pieces I've completed, I can see it wasn't me inventing tales. If it had been, all of them would have been exceedingly boring. Insults accepted later, hear me out.
Sometimes I thought I had a story to tell. But in fact, happenings that revealed themselves as something quite different later on in the story, were unplanned. That must be what's meant by stories writing themselves. It can take on a life of its own while in process. In fact, though, each of these have real substance in the form of occurrences that actually took place, or that might have in some surreal existence, based on some real experience.
There have been things I've written that took shape, but that had no planned ending. In those rare cases I had to find an ending that would hopefully satisfy readers, releasing them from the tale to return to their personal lives and pursuits. However in most cases there's somewhere I want to go with an idea, before I begin. I have a character, I have a setting, I have a point. I may even have an ending. Now the objective is to seize the attention of the reader, give him something to care about, and hold his attention while I wrap him personally into the scenery. Then, I will push him off of the edge of a cliff. He will not survive unless he gets my point before he hits the rocks.
That's all a pile of crap, of course. I'm not that good. In fact, when I write something it's because Icare about it. I care about the limitations of careless, lazy, unthinking, robotic humanity. I care about the natural world, and everything in it. I care about the majesty of the universe, what our place as a species could be rather than what it seems likely it will be. Like, stop hurting each other, okay? Listen to Bill and Ted, and be excellent to each other. And I care about humor, because it helps to preserve my, 'um, sanity. “How are you today?”
“Hahahahahaaaa, ssstable!”
Everything's relative.
Writers of fiction are chicken. We're unwilling to come right out and say what we think, because people might hate us for it. If they hate us, there's no way we'll ever get paid. We're journalists who are unwilling to do the homework to write articles using sound, provable facts. If it's plausible, more or less, it's good stuff. If we know something or just believe something, we can use it, 'cuz it's fiction.
I've reviewed the things I've written from time to time, because it helps me to see just a little bit better how they might impact a reader who hasn't already seen them. Thanks to a crappy memory, I can do that. But that's not what caused this little piece to be written. What did? I just watched a video that takes you to the places from which J.R.R. Tolkien probably got his inspirations for his epic series of books. He definitely had some real points to make, and he assembled the materials from a lifetime of experiences. A fantastic imagination took over.
And so I have one more thing for which I could thank him. If his works defined him,
then my own writing may be defining me.
I can live with that.
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