I always have. The first story I remember writing was a picture book about Komodo dragons trapping a poacher in quicksand. This was in second grade, so I was eight years old.
You could say I have an overdeveloped sense of revenge.
(No wonder I love The Princess Bride).
The abuse of power has always angered me on a cellular level. I try to empathize with people who abuse their power, because it is such a common frailty, but it remains difficult. I've been the bullied kid who learned to bully bullies, and I didn't like myself. At heart I am compassionate. My characters suffer at my hands because I want them to overcome it, to learn from it, and to end it however they can. In Jay Desmarteaux and Denny the Dent's case, that would be physically. Other characters find different ways around their obstacles. (You can't kill everybody for their trespasses, who of us would be left?)
We can't always change the world. And our solutions, if we became dictator, might be as awful as what we despise. But we can commiserate. We can write stories about what angers, delights, and confuses us. Sometimes a story is simply "can you believe this?" A message in a bottle, looking for someone who feels the way you do.
What drives you to write?
No comments:
Post a Comment