Are we nothing but little rebels? #amwriting #writing #writerlife #author

When I first saw this quote, I fell in love with it. “A writer is someone who has taught his mind to misbehave.” How perfect is that? No seriously, how perfect is that?

Almost too perfect.

As authors we are constantly putting our characters through hell—murders, mystery, war, romance strife, death of loved ones, cheating significant others, financial ruin. The list of emotional and physical torture is endless.

Not only do we subject them through things most normal people couldn’t survive through, but we do so in sometimes horrific ways. We toy with the boundaries of acting out situations in our heads that we would never do in reality—graphic crime or sex scenes. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard the joke. “Nothing better happen to my husband, because the cops would have a field day with the search list on my computer.”

What? You mean normal people don’t look up how long it takes a person to bleed out? Or how many stabs it takes to stab someone to death?

So exactly how much do authors rely on that rebel part of our minds? Well, probably more than non-writers.

Why? Because we have to.

We create imaginary worlds and people, and we have to throw those people into a mess of chaos that, sometimes, doesn’t end with a happy ending. We explore areas of our deepest imaginations and entertain thoughts most wouldn’t even think of, or if they do, would run so fast from the thoughts they would look like one of those cartoon blurs flying across the screen.

Authors misbehave and we love it. We love the rush, we love the thrill, we love to test the limits of our minds, and we love making jaws drop. Because you know, when a reader is left with such a rush after reading your book that they want to scream from the rooftops, we’ve done our jobs.

Of course, that does sound a bit psychotic, doesn’t it? Well, probably, a little. But, part of me has always thought that authors were a little off on their rocker, to begin with. I mean, we did set out on the crazy journey of writing a novel in the first place, didn’t we? That’s insane enough. *wink wink*