Sweet Times Forward

I talk often about origin stories (as in, the origins of how I began to write in general, and the origin of certain stories). It can be humbling, figuring out where to start. I just found an old friend’s blog again after finally taking the time and reading the posts of a fellow author/blogger. Well… okay, I found it because I finally checked my non-school email. This author/blogger I’m talking about is a former colleague of my mother’s, when I worked with Queen City Forward in Charlotte, North Carolina for an internship. Tori Karlek is her name, and this is the post I am talking about: Why I Write. She talks about problems with actually sitting down and writing, and I do too, as does every author out there, no matter how big. And sometimes seeing a cliché message is what you need for the day, no matter how often you have seen it, because you see it at the right time. Yesterday I saw her post at the right time.

Tori started Blu Flamingos, in a way; well, at least she inspired me to do it. She told my mom and I about her website Curiously Tori one day. My mom and I got to talking, and we both thought it was a great idea to start a blog about my writing. What’s the best way to start writing? Many, many authors (including myself) would tell you to read. This was around the time I had a Facebook but no Twitter- around seven years ago. I found a lot of other authors and groups through Facebook and started to join them. And then I started reading a few of their blogs and getting a feel for things. Tori was the first (and still is) the only blog I have bothered to actually sign up for email notifications- primarily because I knew her at the time and she asked me.

I have been engaging far more on the social media world in the past couple of weeks out of necessity- initially. My posts may be a little… off centered from what I usually post about my writing because I am branching out to explore a potential future career: social media advertising, and my talking about it is a way for me to reach out. Also, part of the requirements of the class is to write two blog posts about social media every week for five weeks. This is not a bad thing Dr. Perreault, trust me, I enjoy it, I’m not just saying this to appease you. One of the biggest difficulties I have faced in the past while writing is getting over the frustration of the sheer silence of the internet. It is like trying to talk to astronauts inside a spaceship while stuck outside in the vacuum of space bare ass naked; no one is going to hear anything! I will post a question somewhere and no one answers, or I ask what someone thinks about my story and no one answers. I will get a like, or a heart, but that does not mean anything. What did you like about my writing? What is your favorite scene? Favorite character? Those are the things I need to know.

And then again, that used to matter to me. In the asynchronous world of the internet, if I keep seeing a lot of return visitors, I know deep down I have done something right. I know I am passionate, and I know it can be infectious. I know I give the characters It’s a little mystery for me, if anything, and life without mystery is boring- I believe Alfred Hitchcock said something to that effect. I can figure it out myself as I keep writing, and following the blog post/story/poetry analytics from my old Weebly site. I have not given up. Some people talk, of course, and they are proud of me, or excited that I am doing something. When I first started all of this, the writing, when I came up with something solid and my doubts were still eating at me my mom told me, “If ten years ago someone told me you would be an author, I would never have believed them.” And then I read the ending of Why I Write and Tori sums up perfectly an aspect of writing I have always known, but never brought to the forefront of why I write. Not publicly, at any rate. Publicly, making a little money off my bigger stuff is a factor. But I digress.

“And of course, there’s no better feeling than having written. You have a very real, tangible thing that came from your brain. You created it. Exactly how you wanted to create it. Read it over and over with delight. Share with the world – or don’t. (You should at least share with your mom.) It’s yours. And no one can take it from you.”

My stories; they are for me. I am writing the change I want to see in the entertainment industry. I do enjoy sharing all of them; I truly do, even with all the silence. The vocal internet goers just happen to agree with what I have to write- that is why they continue to read, right? I got tired of characters who make really stupid decisions to drive a horror plot, so I made the main heroes of Ruby Caves a professional werewolf hunter and his family. I got tired of my own violent stories and wrote about the romance between a sweet old man and his wife in Nice Albert. I wanted to see the video game Doom with a plot and in written form so I wrote Westward Prophets. Those are all just little pieces of me in a much grander world. I wanted to explore the world hidden right beside the world of humans and wrote the collection Peripheral Shadows. If I tried to write for everybody online I would go insane. I needed that confirmation- as I will probably need that confirmation again sometime in the future, life is like that. I don’t need the whole world. I need my little troop of dedicated fans, and one of the biggest fans is me.