I have been writing all of my life. I have been dreaming all of my life. Unfortunately, the dreams and writing never connected, and only served to take up space on paper, and in my head, that is, until this year.
This year I had a dream. I dreamed of writing. And I dreamed of writing about my dreams. The dream was of a place in the mountains, and the life that I could lead there. It was comforting and vastly different than my current life, but I knew it felt just right. It inspired me to clarify the age-old question, “What do I really want?”
So, instead of ignoring it, I was inspired to sit and write a complete 300-page manuscript, detailing the life and people there in my dream. It may never be published, but it totally helped me clarify my dreams. I dared to put on paper the life I wanted to live, on my terms, in my way, and in the place of my choosing.
I became a fiction writing junky. I needed a hit every day of writing about the dream life, to allow the dream to come true, at least that’s what I envisioned in my dreams. Parts of them have already come true. Crazy how life follows art.
There were other parts that I wished had never come true, they were the real life experiences that writers bring to their stories. The saying goes that “You write what you know.” So writing what I knew became a true cathartic rehash of the messy moments of my life that I wish could be rewritten. So I did.
Rewriting actual moments of my life into a story with either a changed outcome, or added characters and circumstances, helped me better understand the event, and was truly cathartic and healing, and all of those other enlightened words we use today to simply say that we just feel better now. The stories embedded in the fictional novel came from the truest places in my memories banks of pain, awkward moments, confusion, joy, delight, and passion.
It struck me as I read back through the pages of just how many stories had been collecting dust all those many years in the cobwebs of history, only to find themselves thrust between chapters with a new purpose, and an easier way to remember them, or just to live with them. I was truly healing through fiction. Thus, my new website was born.
David Morrell, a well-known thriller writer, held a workshop where he asked one question “Why do you write?” The responses from the attendees ranged from “For the satisfaction of being creative,” to “I’d like to earn the kind of money Stephen King does.” He listened to all of their answers but no one answered “Because I have to.” That’s what happened to me when the dreams began. I had no choice in the matter, I was simply the typist to this writer in my head. Who knows if the writing is readable, or if anyone likes it. OK, I guess I do hope that someone besides myself likes it, but the point is it would not stop me from writing, it would just stop me from writing poorly, and push me to writing better and better.
Healing through fiction writing has become my instrument of therapy, so to speak. Without the words flowing from my heart onto the paper, I’m not sure if I would ever have resolved the mystery of why the woman in the mountain top antique shop accused me of stealing, verbally attacked me, then rummaged through my purse, pushing me out of her store back into the cold mountain air. I may never know why the man died in front of my eyes, his own eyes boring into mine as he took his last breath. But, in my story, that woman is now a mentor, and her behavior was in my best interest. And the man died as a way of bringing me closer to my gifts. The writing brought me there, and I am healed of their traumatic effects.
