Think Outside The Box

Today I got eleven hours of sleep.  I don't even know...  I didn't think that was possible for me anymore.  Usually my body wakes me up after six or seven hours.

Not today.  I'm so proud.

I've been getting some wonderful, gorgeous feedback recently, mostly because I asked for it.  It's surprising, actually, because I know that before I started my blog, I was never really into reading them.  I thought they were super boring and I wondered why anyone would ever write one.  Then I vowed not to be one of those people (so much for that).

By now, even if you haven't been reading this blog for a long time, you've got to know how much I enjoy writing.  It's been a part of my world, albeit a secret part, for a very long time.  I never thought that I would go so far as to include blogging in my secret writing life, but here I am, writing a blog entry and not hating it.

There are lots of things that I could talk about today, although I feel myself waxing philosophical after breaching the "secret writing life" topic.

I think my first order of business is to thank everyone for their comments, emails, and general feedback.  I know I'm not the only blogger who has felt like they were talking to thin air at some point, and unfortunately, blogging is very dependent on readers.  If nobody reads the blog, the blog might as well not exist.  That's the thing about writing in general.  If nobody is going to read it, why are you bothering to write?

Anyway, thanks for talking to me.  It's interesting, because some of the specifically mentioned blog posts, the ones that people liked the most, were the ones that I felt the most out-of-control writing, without a clear purpose in mind.  That's when I resort to my fiction writing skills, I think.  Perhaps I should be doing that more often.

A synopsis of my life since the last time I posted:

• school.
• watched Pride and Prejudice after downing a Dr. Pepper.  My mouth couldn't hold back all of the happiness.  If you want to see me at my very giddiest, pop in Pride and Prejudice and sit back.  I'm such a girl when it comes to that film.
• After Pride and Prejudice, I was so happy that I went outside to our common yard and danced and ran around like my little sister does when she's excited.  Unbounded glee, that's the only way I can explain it.
• I fell for the first time while I was longboarding.  Couldn't avoid a gravel patch, and it sucked the board right out from beneath me.  I kept laughing for at least ten minutes.
• two essays in two days.  I didn't manage my time very well.
• played around on Gina's guitar, Ellie.  The fingertips on my left hand are still numb.  It feels weird when I type.
• Went to Donny T's with Ashbell, which was freakin' delicious, and we talked all about our future.  I told her some secrets in Hardee's.
• Yesterday, Ashbell and I walked up to the Fields at twilight, just because.  We got up there and were talking about our lives as movies, because up at the fields it felt like we were smack in the middle of a movie scene.  Somehow, we started to make up a story about us at the Fields, and we kept creating it all the way back to her house.  It was the most fun I've had in a long time.  I love being able to share the creative experience with people.  I loved that I could say something ridiculously girly and she just kept running with it.
• We watched Donny St...  Johnny St... Billy St...  Oh, it's Charlie St. Cloud?  Nope, I still don't care.  I really hated on that movie.  (Can't hate on Zac Efron, though.)



Tell me you can hate this face.  It doesn't count if you're a boy, because that's just the  jealousy talking. ;)

I want to talk to you about my secret writing life, but I feel like it'd bore you.  I know my life is already pretty boring, and I make you read about it, so I don't want to double bore you with pontifications (I know that's not a word, but I like it better than pontificates, so suck it up) about writing.  Just thinking about that makes me bored for you.

I will say that I write every day, even when I don't put a pen to paper or fingers to a keyboard.  I think that everyone does.  We write every time we make up what-if scenarios or allow ourselves to wonder.  I don't know why there is such a negative connotation attached to fiction for so many people.  They look down upon it with a self-righteous sneer; "fiction," they say, as if it's a smashed celebrity sprawled out on the red carpet.  Distaste and arrogance.  A little breath of laughter that says "I can do better".  That's their fiction.  "Excuse me, I'd rather read about child armies in Africa, real things, than this drivel."

Don't be one of those pseudo-intellectuals who never picks up a novel.  Don't think you're better than the person putting their what-ifs and wonderings on paper or online.  Every person creates fiction, whether you write it down or not.  I firmly believe that.  And I don't see anything wrong with reading or writing it.  

The wonderful thing about fiction is that it can be entirely real.  I can write a novel about child armies in Africa without ever mentioning children, wars, or the African continent.  Some of those kinds of novels are thinly veiled.  The author might not mention child armies in Africa, but their main character is a baby lemur who is kidnapped and forced to spy on the lemurs in another part of the baobab tree.  We could pretty easily trace that to Africa, and replace baby lemur with African child, spying with toting an MP5 and marching with thousands of other kidnapped children, and there we have a novel about child armies in Africa.

The other wonderful thing about fiction is that it doesn't have to be real.  I can write a novel about kidnapped baby lemurs and nobody can tell me not to.  Nobody can say "well that's not real" and discredit my novel.  Well, it's fiction, of course it's not real.  Where's the harm in creating something that's not "real"?

Another wonderful thing about fiction is that it can be whatever you want it to be about.  Perhaps I'm writing a novel about a kidnapped baby lemur, and I'm thinking "thinly-veiled book about child armies in Africa".  But you read it, and you're thinking "bildungsroman about learning to fight against corruption".  Or you're thinking "kidnapped baby lemur in a baobab tree".  I love that about fiction.  It's not real, which is the whole point.  It can be interpreted however you want it to be interpreted.  

The real question is, why not create?  Why not write down those what-ifs, and add in a fictional best friend and follow the story out to the happy end?  Why not share what you're thinking?  Why not paint a picture, sing a song, write a book, cook dinner?  Why not have a baby?  Why not?  We have this incredible opportunity to create.  We can create worlds that don't exist, people that will never live, but more than that, we can create people who will live.  We can take chicken breast and some pasta and make a meal that can be enjoyed.  We can make a home from a pile of wood and nails.

We can create.  Isn't it wonderful?  We can create, and we can enjoy other people's creations, we can share community and culture and learn from each other.

Learn from yourself.  Learn what you can do.  Appreciate creation in all its forms.  Don't discredit someone's work because they found the words to describe their wonder, and you couldn't.  Don't discredit fiction because it isn't real.  Reality is transitory.  Reality is laying in your bed, trying to fall asleep one minute, and running from the mafia the next.  Willingly forgo reality.  Sometimes you need to step outside of the boundaries to see what is really real.