On writing...

Some people have the ability to make the most ordinary things seem profound in their writing. They make you experience the simple things in life as if they are spiritual experiences, the most beautiful event in the world, etc. I do not have the gift of writing that kind of joy into my descriptions of ordinary events. I think I once used to. Perhaps I've become too "practical" as I've moved into "the real world". My attempts to express beauty that I see have generally failed miserably. They sound cheesy, cliched.
When I write, I write for the mind. I write about the mind. I put into words all of the terrible and strong emotions that I encounter in the course of a day, sometimes because of that beauty, but often because of interactions, trains of thought, and simple musings. I can take a pencil (or keyboard) and tell you, in the work of an hour or so, exactly how it felt when so and so said thus and such, and why it felt wonderful or why it hurt.
I am very adept at expressing pain, I think. Not physical pain - that isn't important. But emotional and mental pain, confusion, sometimes even anger: these I can express with the same eloquence I find in another's description of a tree or travel.
On one rare occasion, I was able to express peace. Not the lack of negative emotions that many people think of as peace, but true peace. The feeling of being in harmony with the people around me; of complete agreement even when we didn't agree, of loving those people for creating that aura of peace that I lived in for a few eternal hours while we conversed. I have not been able to do that since then. I've shied away from trying, I think, knowing that the pain of failing to re-create that creative moment would be terrible.
So instead, I write about life from my eyes. I hide behind my characters, put them in situations that exaggerate what I went through so that readers will believe the emotions when they encounter them. I write not to be read, but to be felt. And yet, this is all psychological. I do not appeal to emotions, as such, but to the intellectual mind. The mind that thinks about what it feels, and analyzes its day. The mind that constantly asks, "why did that happen?" and "how could I have dealt with that better?"
Mostly, I suppose, I write for my mind. Read my fiction and poetry and you will see my mind and spirit, hiding in the fiction and flirting with reality, so that you never know - unless you know me - what is real and what is not. Maybe it's all real. Maybe none of it is.

I need to begin writing more. I can feel my brain stagnating as I force myself to deal with the "real world" of work and paying bills and being a so-called "grownup." You may see some of the results of that here, you may not. I hope so.

Here's to the growth of minds.