The innocence of writing.

To me, writing is such an innocent thing.  So blameless, a vivid world that comes out of nothing.  An addition to my life emerging out of the chaos beneath.  I marvel at how people and places become alive in my imagination and get transferred to the page -- imperfectly perhaps -- but hopefully still palpable to the people who read about them.

A joy that is self-created, dependent on nothing but myself.  All I must do is free the time, I must let these notions incubate and grow and become richer given space and energy. They are a second life, and they can be anything I want.  They exist, perhaps undiscovered, but waiting for another person to animate them and make them live again.

They make me feel younger, deeper, stronger.  I did this.  These are from my subconscious and they are meaningful -- to me, if no one else.  But sometimes they just seem to do a dance, and I know--simply know -- that given a chance others will also witness that dance and appreciate it.

Like alternate universes, they exist, mostly undiscovered, but waiting for a consciousness that will make them live.

I want people to read them, but know that people are busy with their own lives.  They don't have time for someone else's notions and when they do, there are many universes that are well known, places they can go that they know will entertain them.  There is no particular reason why they should want to explore my worlds over others.

But there is a reason for me to.  Because even the faintest glimmerings of my own are deeper than the strongest creations of others.  And I know that I have it in me to make my creations stronger, deeper, more meaningful if I devote enough of myself to them.  If I am not paid, so what?  These other people, fictional is what they are called but to me they exist, they don't ask to be paid.  They don't even know I exist.  I am not god, but a translator, trying to catch glimpses of them through the fog and describe them as best I can.

Yes, when I'm alone and not writing, I want so much for others to read what I've written.

But when I am alone and writing, it doesn't matter, because I am creating, and creating is its own reward, and the character and places I create exist solely because I took the time to grab them from the air and pin them to the page.  They need not be grateful, these characters -- I am grateful to them.

The work of it --that is all in my head, and so what?

The creation is nothing but a joy, and sometimes I get filled with a sort of euphoria that something has bloomed out of nothing.  That something exists that didn't exist before, and would never exist without me.

Linda often says that she feels a pressure to complete her stories because the characters demand it.  That otherwise she is abandoning them, their lives unfulfilled and unfinished.

I worry only that these characters and places that I have swirling behind my eyes won't get onto the page in time.  That I won't get to them and they'll remain unborn and formless.

But everytime I pick up one of my books and read a passage to myself, I know that I am responsible for these events existing and it feels good.