The Why of it

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I get a little crazy when I'm writing.  Okay, I'm not sure that crazy is the right word, but oddly enough I can't come up with a better one. Some writer I am :-) I suppose "lost", "focused", "down the rabbit hole" would all be apt descriptions. I need not be working on some epic masterpiece (and to date have never attempted such a lofty pursuit), but it doesn't matter. I certainly go somewhere.

I'm writing another book, which looks to be the first in a three-book series. It's funny how these things seem to happen: I start out with a very clear picture of where I want it to go, and then it sort of takes on a life of its own. I wonder where it all comes from, this "other" life. I'm sure much of it lurks in the deepest, darkest recesses of my mind just waiting for the opportunity to be brought to light. A scary thought on many levels. Even scarier, I write horror. One can't write what one can't imagine. But even on those rare days free of distractions and shiny things, the days when things flow most easily, writing is consistent work. I've been asked more than once why I do it, especially considering the financial uncertainty and the time commitment. For that, I have no good answer, other than because I have to.

Okay, maybe that doesn't apply so much to books (I don't think), but that's not all I write. I write a lot, and have for years. I've had a journal since I was young, and then I wrote poetry. Most of it was dark and troubled like my thoughts at the time; life hasn't always been kind, but some of it was still beautiful. I wrote in school: creative writing, English, humanities. And then I discovered (eventually, after many years) the world of online media. I wrote on Myspace, about everything, all the time. And it was such a relief. Some days (and maybe you feel this too) my head is just so filled with thoughts and my soul so filled with...I don't know, that if I didn't have an outlet I might burst. Does that give me a right to make my outlet public? Or to have the audacity to believe that I can make a living at it?  That remains to be seen. But my inner magic 8-ball says "Signs point to yes" on most days. The good days, when everything feels possible, like I'm being pulled like a magnet forward to some as-yet-to-be-determined place where I belong.

But what the hell does that mean? I guess that part of the picture isn't so clear. I've been told that my name means clarity, so maybe that's forthcoming. In the interim, I'll just fumble around in the dark like I always have, bumping occasionally into something that might be good fodder for a horror novel. Write what you know. That's the rule, isn't it? A strange thought from someone with a generally positive and overly optimistic outlook, don't you think? Blame it on the moon; it's glow creates shadows. We all have our darkness.

Maybe 'crazy' is the right word after all?