There are some stories that grab you round the neck and say “write me or else!” There are other stories that are so hypnotically enchanting that you can’t stop thinking about them until you get them down on paper, and half the time you write them down just so that they’ll get out of your head. There are a lot of stories that are begun and never finished simply because they were only a passing flash of inspiration that never gained enough kindling to become a full-blown bonfire. There are a few stories that come to you fully written, completely plotted, and with every character’s life already spelled out, and those are hard for me to write, because I as a writer don’t need to know what happens next, nor do I care about what’s already happened.
Then there’s a story that look you in the eye, and suddenly you know, just from the way it stares at you, that someone needs to write it, because it’s a story that must be told. You realize that you also know no one else is going to write that particular story. So, since it needs to be written, and since no one else is going to do it, you get started on it.
As you work, you begin to see that it’s a lot more intense than you thought it was going to be. Possibly even depressing at times. Maybe even the most depressing thing you’ve ever written. It gets to the point where you know every step of plot and every thought of every character, but you can’t write the words down simply because the words themselves weigh a thousand tons each, and moving them from wherever it is these stories come from into the world of words is hard.
Do you give up? No. You can’t give up. Every time you think about it, you see that story staring at you, looking you in the eye, not saying anything. Why doesn’t it say anything? It doesn’t need to. All it has to do is look at you and you know. No one else would write it, and it’s too important a story not to be written.
So you plow on, powered by the knowledge that this story must be written and someday it might just change the way the world thinks. How could you pass up an opportunity like that?
Which brings me to The Reason I write. Besides the fact that I can’t help myself and writing is as natural and automatic as breathing, I write, because I want to change the way the world thinks. I want to make people ask questions and find their own answers. I want take the world that we know, turn it on its head and set it spinning in the opposite direction from normal, because when someone else sees that, they might reject it out of hand, but it might also make it easier for them to accept something a little closer to normal but still outside their comfort zone. If we can stretch peoples’ minds and help them think outside themselves and then help them look more deeply into themselves than they ever have before, what kind of world could we then build together? I want to help people see more possibilities and sometimes the best way to do that is to begin with an assumption along the lines of “there are no impossibilities”.
So, I’m going to keep working on this story that’s staring at me. Hopefully someday you’ll see it in a bookstore or on your electronic reading device or in a library, and maybe you’ll read it because the cover caught your attention (or maybe you’ll see my name on it and it’ll ring a vague bell of recognition), and then, perhaps, the way you see the world or the way you see yourself will change for the better, and all because this story was written.
