A person asked me today what motivates me to write.
Peter David once said–and I may be paraphrasing here–that “a writer cannot ‘not’ write. The compulsion is too strong.” That quote has been a go-to for years. But today, I stumbled over it, thinking about what this person was about to go through. And how I once went through something very similar. I didn’t really have anyone that I felt I could talk to about it–at least not anyone that would understand completely. Writing then became, at least on a subconscious level, a way of coping. What happened next wasn’t surprising at the time, but it is surprising in hindsight.
I kept bottling things up.
I wouldn’t talk about anything that was bothering me unless it directly affected another person. Then–once I reached a sort of boiling point–I wrote about it, put the ideas scrambling though my brain in the mouth of a character or two.
I’m not sure if it was healthy. I’m not sure if my life would have gone a different way had I voiced my opinions instead of fictionalizing them.
But I am sure it motivated me.
Superheroes in Prose Volume 10: Two Rocks and a Hard Place on sale October 29th