And not just on my blog, although I do enjoy it, I love writing stories.
Really I have since I was very little, although I must say that some of my early stories are complete rubbish.
Writing stories is and always has been my way of art. I'm not a very good painter, my drawings are childish at best, I'm not very good a fiber arts and those sorts of things.
I've been reading since before I started kindergarten. I went to public school for a little while, and nobody believed me when I said I was really reading the Magic Schoolbus stories.
But I was reading them, and I have always loved a good story, it's a great way to not only entertain yourself, and develop a great imagination, but it's also a really good way to loose yourself. Whenever something really difficult is going on in life, getting lost in another universe is sometimes very helpful.
But then so is writing. It's different than just reading about someone else's creations.
When you read it's like walking through someone else's garden. You can enjoy the flowers, sit on the benches, breath in the wonderful aromas, get lost in the beauty. It's a wonderful feeling.
But writing your own stories, creating your own universe is more like being the architect of the garden. You decide what flowers to plant, where they go, what decorations you want.
But it's different than that. Because when you write your own story, you fall in love with your creations.
When I read the Hunger Games, I absolutely fell in love with the characters. Katniss reminds me of myself, so of course I liked her (although sometimes I hated her), it was like reading myself in the adventure. But beyond that, there was Peeta, who in my opinion is the sweetest guy ever, protecting Katniss like he did. Finnick, who I hated at first, but after having spent so much time in the story, with Finnick, I grew to love him and Annie just as much as Katniss and Peeta. Gale, Madge, Prim, Cinna (who honestly was my favorite person in the whole story). I became so attached to these characters, I sometimes wonder about what their lives were like after the last book.
But then I wrote my own book. It's short, nothing hugely impressive, probably never going to be a best seller or anything like that. But it's mine. I made the entire universe. I know everything about my characters. I know their past, their present, their whole future lives. It's a weird feeling to have that much power over the lives, and even the thoughts of them. I could control every situation. And I don't have to wonder what happened after their story was over, because for me, it's never over. I don't have to wonder what happened next, because I can create what happens next, even if nobody else ever knows, it's my universe.
I tend to get lost in my made-up worlds sometimes. I make myself a character and live their lives through the words that I write. Hours can pass and still I'm sitting there, writing the lives of my creations. It's a feeling like no other.
Of course, my problem is that I have all these great ideas for what would make amazing stories, but those are never the ones that I end up finishing. The ones that I end up finishing are the ones that kind of write themselves. I don't start out with a plot in mind, I just sit down and it just happens. I still have control over what my characters do and say and think, but more often than that, my characters do whatever needs to be done.
God made us in His image, all of us. And I believe that part of that is our love of creating things. Not everybody creates things in the same way. Some are writers, some are painters, some people like to make movies, but everyone has a way of creating things.
Sometimes it feels like we cannot find our own way of expressing what's going on inside. Most of the times the most beautiful and wonderful creations come when we are trying to find a way to deal with something. Not everyone is eloquent with spoken words, so not everyone can just say what is on their minds.
Some people draw their troubles away, that is why some artwork seems so strange. It's what is inside the person who is drawing it, their way of taking whatever they need to say and saying it, but it comes out differently than spoken word.
I have a hard time saying what I need to say, and instead I quite often write. I don't always write exactly what is bothering me, sometimes I have no words to express that.
Instead, sometimes I just start writing. My character may not go through exactly what I am going through, or they may go through something completely different, but somewhere in that story is a little tiny piece of me. The way somebody in that story thinks is the way I think, something that happens to them is slightly like something that happens to me.
The biggest difficulty with words is that you can't always see through them as they were intended to be seen through. On the other side of a written word is a thought. That thought contains so much, and nobody but the thinker can ever hope to see the fullness of it.
Sometimes people have so much going on inside, a whole universe that only they have access to, and the only way for them to let anyone else have a glimpse inside that universe is to use the written word. Spoken words are sometimes not enough, or sometimes impossible to use. But through that written word, other people can catch a glimpse into the writers mind.
Everyone is different. In some cases that is more obvious than in others.
Everyone has a way of expressing themselves.
Let me just say that for a very long time I was very against the whole 'Express Yourself' thing. Some people use that as an excuse for sinning, which is not what I mean at all by this.
Nobody can keep everything bottled up forever, but not everybody can just say what is on their minds. Everyone has a way of expressing how they are feeling.
Pay attention. Learn how you express yourself, but more importantly, learn how others express themselves. We can't expect everyone to just talk about how they feel. If we want to understand others, we have to learn to understand the way they communicate.
Part of loving others is learning how others need to be loved. Don't get frustrated or angry when someone that you love seems like they won't open up to you. They probably are telling you stuff, you just need to learn how to listen to them.
Cheers!
