Jim Power's Blog: Jim Power, page 6

Fiction writers are parents

When you write fiction, you marvel at your ability to create brave new worlds, to go boldly where no man has gone before. You are a king, a demigod, a czar able to unleash the forces of nature, to create beauty, to expose ugliness, to celebrate integrity or demean injustice.

We create our characters, making them in our lofty image. But then something happens. The characters come alive. In many ways, fiction characters are like children. You give them life, introduce them to the world, nurture them, and then, all of a sudden, they become independent, telling you what they're going to do rather than walking the line you've laid out for them.

"You ungrateful louts!" you call out, but they ignore you, running away without hearing a word you utter.

You will die and they will live on, affecting future writers who will learn the same, harsh lesson.

And that's the way it's meant to be. - Jim Power

Writing can be hazardous

In most vocations one aspires to excellence, to achieving the very highest standard imaginable. In writing that can be hazardous to your health, both physical and mental.

One of the great pitfalls of writing is that you essentially do it while sitting at a desk. For me personally, I find 8-10 hour days the norm. This means that I am sitting stationary for 56-70 hours per week. That is not good for your physical well-being. Of course, one could suggest mandatory exercise, but when writers are in a zone, it is hard to leave that desk and, as a consequence, the sedentary lifestyle.

Even more concerning, however, is mental health. Fiction writers are essentially professional liars. We have to tell lies and, if you're good, people believe those lies. They believe your story and your characters are real. However, as a premise to that conclusion, one must, I think, believe his or her own lies. If you don't believe your characters are real, after all, how can you expect others to?

What happens when you can no longer distinguish between real people and fake real people? I absolutely fell in love with one of my female leads. (Please don't tell my wife.) And I hated one of my villains, but the crafty devil got away in the end.

The mind is a furnace in which all stimuli is processed. The real world and the imaginary world of the writer funnel through those same electrical pathways. Separating them is crucial for mental health, but lethal to the sublime zone we all seek.