Taking the Paranormal in to the Everyday

           You wake up in the morning and it feels like you have balls of cotton shoved in your ears – you can hear, some sounds even seem amplified, but everything has that muffled quality that you’d hear through a door or wall.  When you pry your eyelids open the light is blinding to you, even as the gritt in your eyes rubs like sandpaper on the sensitive tissue.  You swallow and the burn is like a shot of potent alcohol.  You gasp, hoping to cool the burn but the cool air only cuts at your throat like a thousand tiny blades.  Realization hits you…

            You’re sick.

Image by Ivars Krutainis via Flickr

            Of course you are, but therein lies the amazing possibilities and wonderous range of what could be the cause of your pain and discomfort when (or if) you factor in a fantasy or paranormal angle to your story.  Maybe you’re waking up after being attacked by vampires.  Maybe you’re a witch who is experiencing the effects of a “magic hangover” after an overuse of power.  Or maybe you were the unfortunate victim of a Fright Demon (you know one of those terror inducing demons who literally live on the power of your fear, and particularly enjoy the sounds of your screams…)

            You add paranormal twists or a fantasy bent to your story and you create a world for yourself that literally (no pun intended) holds unending, limitless, fluidly imaginative possibilities.  You can go anywhere, be (or become) anyone, do nearly anything, and all because you’ve taken your character out of the ‘real’ world and placed them into a world of your own making.

            So where would you go, if you could go anywhere?  And where would you go, if you could go there in the blink of an eye?  Who would you be, or become, if you could take any identity you wanted with merely a wish?  If you could do anything, what would it be?  And through it all, would be acting for the good of your self, for the good of all, or to destroy everything in good in the world?  Would you be good or evil?

What if?

I truly am amazed how quickly the time goes by. Amazed by how little is actually getting done, no matter my intentions. I'm annoyed by it too. It seems like there is something new, something more to do everyday and everyday I want to do those things less and less. The stories, no, the characters - these fully rounded, animated, alive people - are inside my mind practically begging and screaming to get out and I can barely find the time to answer my e-mail. There are times that the frustration, the irritation of it actually hurts.

And maybe that's not a good thing.

I did mention that I was crazy once, didn't I?

There are so many things I have to do everyday but the only thing I want to do right now is write. And I don't have the time - life is just in the way (for now) and every time I think I've managed to arrange things so that I can eke out an hour for my work, something else pops up and I have to turn away from the stories. From the characters.

And I fear...

What will I do if, after not being able to write for so long at a time, for having to ignore the voices - the characters - for so long, what if when I can finally turn back to my writing and there's nothing left for me to tell? What if the characters and the stories leave me with nothing to say?