Short Stories.

World Within the Mind

Have you ever looked into the mind of an author? It's a rather cluttered place, full of beautiful people and magnificent worlds. Pieces of puzzles, ideas and thoughts coming together to bring brilliant things together. They are a talented group of people. Not many people can create something from nothing.

It's an art, and the most difficult thing to be. When you write, you're not just an author, you have to be a thousand things. You're a poet, a weapons expert, a bleeding heart, a scholar, a legendary cook, a theorist, an engineer, a reckless teenage girl, a dying god, a queen, a child, the wise old man. You have to be able to write monologues and speeches and heartfelt confessions and you have to make them believable. It's putting yourself into someone else's shoes and pouring out your heart to the world.

We have so many reasons to write. We're in love with the world in our hearts, and we have an obligation to our characters to tell their stories. Yes, that sounds insane but just let me explain. Imagine having no story yourself, existing in nothing with no purpose. We give them purpose. Without me, my characters, these parts of me are all lost, homeless and trapped in my mind. They help through so much, it would be cruel not to give them a place to live, to exist, to explore. Through writing, we can experience things a thousand times, from falling in love over and over again with each character to, heartbreak when their story comes to an end. We get the ability to experience things things we will never experience in real life. Most of all because, it expresses who we really are inside. It shows all sides of us, tells each of our stories for each factor of ourselves. It would be cruel not to write, it would torment the heart and clutter the mind, and leave only an empty feeling behind.

Writing is what helps to feel complete. Looking at my characters, I see myself, in each and everyone. From the deaf that speaks sign language, to the singer/songwriter, to the boy with a cluttered mind. The girl with the eyepatch in love with the boy with the piercings, her childhood friend. Happy peppy girls, showing the side I wish I had. The brave huntress, unafraid and in love with the demon I wish could exist in a world so bland. The girls banding together as friends I wish I had. The teenagers with so many problems they want to explode, each having some aspect of my heart in them while they struggle. A girl so lucky to meet an angel. Twins again, old and only holding each other near, holding a thousand memories filled with death and gore, but still cracking the same familiar jokes. The villains who even despite my hatred for them, I love and see parts of myself in. The demons that represent my destructiveness, the kind of destruction that happens to my heart. The three friends, immortals, disconnected and only attached to each other despite severe differences. A beautiful teen so torn with mental illness struggling to fit in, in a world so cruel, harsh and bound to hate, and the God. The oh so lonesome God's, one who had to deal with loneliness and isolation, yet still created an entire world from her own torn mind. The goddess who tripped and fell in love with someone forbidden to her.

In each I see myself, even in little ways. A wonderful connection is formed, and i feel complete and attached to these people, those who never existed at all. It's amazing what writing does, making us miss the people that never even existed. But what people don't realize is they do exist, all the conversations, laughs, love, hate, anger, heartbreak and sadness, all of it is a reality to a writer. We see everything like a huge story, a billion things all coming together. Characters connecting, across books, through different time lines and different universes. It's the most wonderful thing in the world.

It is a very childish idea. Many may say it's stupid thinking of things like this, but it is all my reality. I can hear them and see them in my mind. Visualize each and every one of them, know how they speak and move. Their very voices resonating in my mind. All of it comes together, how they speak, what words they choose, how they stand, how they move, how they feel. It comes together perfectly. As if, all of these fictional characters are real. It's as if you can hear them.

"Quit it Akio, you and your stupid sign language puns."

"I'm not sick, I'm twisted. Sick makes it sound like there's a cure. Stop trying to act like there's a cure Dr. Spen."

"Shio! Isn't it just a wonderful day to be outside and in the world?"

"I could have an arrow in the middle of your forehead with a single movement, state your name or die where you stand."

"Last I checked, angels don't have piercings, tattoos and electric blue hair."

"God damnit June! When we say hide from the shadow, that doesn't mean kill us! Immortal or not, it's a pain in the ass!"

Sure, to you, those sentences mean nothing. No story, no plot, no characterization even. Not even who spoke the words is there, but in my mind, the entire scene opened up in front of me. I heard every words as they would be spoken, I knew who, I knew setting, and I knew plot. It unfolds in front of me, because writers have a built in sense, it's in our blood. We are aware of the world but more aware of the worlds in our heads.

It's a crazy idea, and it makes us sound crazy but, you wouldn't believe how much a character can mean to an author and how much pain we go through because of them. The idea of writing is impressive, appreciate it all. And stop judging. Don't judge the grammar, the sentence length, how they do dialogue. Don't point out a lack of detail, don't say anything about a lack of variety, don't pick and choose based on writing style. Every book has potential,appreciate them all. Writing is damn hard. We go through hell and back to finish books and characterize them and make it perfect. Yeah, it ain't always perfect, but everyone has to start somewhere in life. Make your way up. Bigger books, more characters, better plots. Add to the huge family in your head.

Sure they may be from different books but, maybe the angel from one's best friends with the demon in another. Maybe you're immortals crossed your vampires paths. Maybe your two characters are twins in another lifetime. Perhaps, two books take place in one universe, one unaware of the other.

There's a million things going on in a writer's head, and things connect a lot of different ways. It may seem strange but for us it's a reality. Try and step into our shoes, express yourself. Be everything. People say you can be anything you want, and being a writer really lets you do just that.