Breaking down poetic boundaries and looking inside
Have you ever met someone very interesting and wanted to get to know them?
If you have, and most of us have, you will better understand what it feels like for a writer to have a new idea. The ideas do not appear as words interacting with other words. The characters are people, who live in towns and cities, and have lives and hopes and dreams of their own. Connections are built between the characters that lead to dynamic interactions and have lasting consequences for the story.
While writing the story, feelings develop for the characters because the writer knows how they feel. It’s with these emotions, the ones that exist in the writer’s mind that create characters so real and interesting, that the reader becomes involved and develops emotional attachment.
Ideas sometimes grow into forbidden orchards and conversations sometimes bloom into beautiful gardens.
It might seem strange to you that a writer creates a killer who carries a knife with a short, dull blade because he likes to watch the light’s in his victims eyes flicker out right after they die. And how about the writer who talks about a character as if the person is really alive? It might seem strange when a writer models a victim or love interest after someone they know in real life. But, writing is a very strange thing indeed. It’s strange to have people talking in your head, strange to imagine murdering someone and how to get away with it. Writing is strange in a million ways.
Time and time again, creative people collect poison water from a shallow spring and carefully filter it until it is clear and sparkling.
Writers enjoy creating people and stories. It’s part of their lives. The Muse gives her stories and takes them away. Life is good when the Muse dances. Life is miserable when she hides herself away. It becomes like a drug. It’s their way of life. The Muse is an important part of any creative person’s mental and emotional support group.
So the next time the creative person in your life is talking about their story as if it is real or you recognize features of a character in the checkout line at the neighborhood grocery store, just be happy that the creative person is being creative.