Things Like Writing Fantasy

I'm a fiction writer, along with a number of other things, but in particular, I'd like to consider that my major passion is in writing. This should seem obvious in the fact that I bother to write things all over the internet like blogs and whatnot. Clearly, I'm not going to do all this unless it means something to me.

And I mean something other than watching my pageview counter go up. Because that would be a lousy incentive.

But in all seriousness, why should I be so attached to a practice that makes some people cringe and shrink away in horror? There were way too many people in my AP English class who would rather spend twelve hours on a special project and explanatory presentation than write a two-hour paper on the book of choice. What can I say? Choosing the two-hour paper, I figured out who was the real masochist.

I've had my masochistic moments, but pulling all-nighters to create a mind-blowing diorama when I could write an equally good paper in way less time just seems simple to me. I let the pain-inflicting project go. Taking the easy way out is nice sometimes too. If I want to inflict ego-reducing and sleep-depriving pain on myself, I'll just go back to playing World of Warcraft. At least it's entertaining.


But, I digress. Writing papers is one thing. Writing beyond the classroom is entirely another. Like Writing Fantasy. That is like asking for a world of pain. Among other things, of course. Discovery, passion, character, world-building, drama, revenge, love, magic... And death. Lots of death.

Writing. The thing can get you killed.

Or your characters. In fact, preferably your characters. Because the day my characters leap off of the pages and begin rioting because I killed someone off I shouldn't have, I'm dead. Those people are scary, and they've kind of been haunting my dreams lately. I keep waiting for the Karma Catch-Up, but it's not happening. ... Makes me nervous...

Unless you count my characters haunting my dreams as karma, which it totally could be. Or I'm just losing my mind. Or I lost it waaaaaaaaaay long ago and have been falling out of this world for a long time.

That's probably it.

Because I don't think I've really been operating on the same plane of existence as the normal population of people for a pretty long time. Sometimes I get weird looks and things. Sometimes it's because I just did or said something absolutely ridiculous. Sometimes, I swear it's because I'm from another planet.

Not surprising. I should write a book on it. Oh god, I already am.