An Author's Tale

PROMPT: So you love to write. Why is that? Why did you get into it? When did you start? What's your favorite format? How does it define you?

This essay was written for a contest that asked those questions, but it explains why I'm here at Writing.com, and why I love being here.

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An Author's Tale

         Of course, I love to write. How could one not! To write is to babble on without someone yawning. It is to freely express what you wish you could always say but can’t think of in that moment. To write is to lift up and sing without worrying that you will waken your neighbor or disturb the rest of the people you love. With words on paper, I do not even have to worry if I sing in key. Writing is expressed with openness. Thus, it is free to rise into the air, drifting like soft smoke rising above a campfire.

         My words, my thoughts, my dreams sent like a bottle tossed into the ocean . . . such freedom. On land I am bound. I can only jump so high. I cannot lift up into the heavens. I am not free. But in words, I can pounce and play and feel no limitation. I can invent new vistas, paint the sky in purple-reds, find fields of yellow poppies, and animals that respond in ways that animals do not.

         Writing is soaring in the clouds and with the clouds. Where else can we freely drift with the breeze, lying on our back in the blue dwellings of angels? Where else are we limitless and unbounded?

         What do I get out of writing? Besides freedom and the release of worry and problems . . . there is also exploration. I have been to the outer limits of our galaxy. I have sailed across the oceans and down beneath the currents. I have climbed mountain ranges, galloped across meadows, fallen in love with black-hearted villains, kindhearted youths, and aged lovers whose gentle touch has taught me what I didn’t know I knew. I have seen the birth of babies, puppies, and foals. I have journeyed to foreign lands. I have lived in times before I was born and times that have not yet been. I have explored the crevices of my mind and have found in my imagination more stories than I’ve ever read. Creativity breathes life into pen and paper, and no Hollywood could ever compete, not with the stories that swim inside my mind. They fill me with wonder and with poems of delight.

         I, like most writers, have always made up stories. They send me to sleep at night. They dance through my dreams; they entertain my dry moments. Even now in the dentist’s chair, I do not stay in the chair. I flit in and out of fantasy. The stories lead me away from boredom and discomfort. They have done so always, and only few of them make their way to paper. Most of them dwell in my inner mind where they lie dormant, waiting for me to play. The wonder is that not everyone can have such pleasure. Is it true that there are those without such a play toy? Does the dry mind truly have no sweets to savor, no secret voyage where none may follow? I pity such emptiness, for we with the tongue of the gods have the secret to eternal life.

         You ask my favorite format. How droll that is! My format is anything that unrolls. You see, each character has his own peculiar face and characteristics. So, therefore, he has his own format. One idea, word, or person decides to be a poem. Another chooses to be a mystery. Yet, another is stubbornly a comedy. How can we, the author, not allow such freedom? As I am unbound by my writing, so are my stories and poems. Gentle nudges tap the outer lines, but they do not formulate the substance. I am a mother giving guidance, not a molder of clay.

         Such is the nature of the author and thus the unraveling of his writings. Perhaps writing is truthfully all magic, a magic that transforms a blank paper into something which draws tears and becomes real. It is an art form that recreates something once seen and resurrects it or reformulates it from mere groupings of words into a miraculous birth. Something that was once unseen, unrealized, is suddenly as solid as your best friend. Is that not magic?

         Ah, yes, then do not call me author, call me magician, and I shall smile and write a frothy poem for you, or perhaps dance a lyric through your mind, or entwine you with a touch of fiction until your lips part and you laugh. And thus will I, for it takes so little to enthrone me in contented bliss -- a sigh, a tear, a drop of praise . . .

Let me just taste of your pleasure, and as an author, I have found my delight.


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First Place In Written Reasoning:"Invalid Item" And review of it:

         What the judge said: Shaara was able to express her feelings about her writing in a very imaginative way. When describing her reasoning behind her love for writing she used everyday images that fill our soul and heart with peace, and compare them to the joy she receives from such a beloved past time. Congratulations Shaara. A wonderful piece of work. Ruth Skaya

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