Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Writers: lovers of the word or menaces to society?

I remarked to the P-i-C on our nightly walk/casing of joints that I wished one of my characters in my current WIP were real so that I could be friends with her.

"Is that nerdy?" I asked.
"A little nerdy. But you made her up, so isn't that kind of like hanging out with yourself?"
Cue me making big eyes. "Ohhhhh, do you think I have a split personality? Or multiple personalities? Maybe all writers have multiple personalities. If you really think about it, we're all psychopaths."

My logic is sound, so don't try to refute it. But seriously, gentle readers, are we psychotic sleeper cells waiting to be activated by a bad book review? I mean, think of some of the big bads in literature; those came from writerly types, gentle readers! Writerly types! Hannibal Lecter, Voldemort, the bully from that Captain Underpants series (bane of our existence!) - all concocted by seemingly ordinary citizens like you and me. We've envisioned wars, murders, rapes and pillages, and perhaps most horrifyingly of all, TEEN PREGNANCIES. We're monsters, my friends, monsters of the word!

Do we need to be locked away for our own safety, with only a scrap of chalk and a blackboard as our writing utensils because pens and pencils are too sharp? Will this be like that scene in Identity where you find out that all the people are just figments of some serial killer's imagination? ARE WE NUTCASES, GENTLE READERS?

Has this post been written by my paranoid and delusional alter ego? Stay tuned...

2 comments:

Lydia Kang said...

I like to think we have hyperimaginationitis.

Kimberly Franklin said...

Yeah, what she said. Haha. It's really bad when the characters you make up start talking to you, isn't it? But for writers, it's normal. I think. I hope. Or maybe we're all just delusional! ;)