I'm Ruined!

So I’m going a little brain dead here. It’s been like three months since I’ve been in school. That’s partly why I started the blog: A, for a hobby, and B, because I’ve temporarily stopped using my brain and it’s quietly lapsing into absolute RUIN!

I think I used to be altogether smarter when I was younger. I loved the idea of having intellectual depth in the eighth grade. But at some point my brain kind of short-circuited. I started having migraines and other health issues. I stopped thinking so hard, and more importantly, I stopped reading and writing as much.

I used to write ALL THE TIME.

My friends and I were into “roleplaying.” One person writes down the actions of one character, someone else controls another character, and you take turns writing paragraphs and responding to each other’s actions. Together it makes a story.  We made it up as we went along.

Try to understand: we poured our souls into those characters. We knew them inside and out. We used the same characters often, and over time they became so developed that they seemed real to us.

It was during that time that my friends and I tapped into an alternate reality. We imagined that our characters lived and breathed among us. I would often write scenes just to please myself, where the characters that I had invented lived in my house and only my friends and I could see them. In my stories they caused trouble, made friends with each other, fought with each other, fell in love with each other. They were imaginary friends that had appeared a little late in my life.

I was writing constantly. I wrote in my free time, during study hall, even during class. I filled dozens of notebooks with sketches either about my characters, or from scenes in plots I’d created. Back then, words flowed from my pencil with ease and grace. I’d trained myself to transform every thought, every situation into something that could be used in a story.

Though I’ve lost some of that grace, words still flow from me because they are a part of me. When God made me, He pressed the written word so deep into my soul that I’ll never escape my love for it. It was a shame to let my relationship with literacy slip for any amount of time! I’m taking action: I’m going to write more. I’m going to dote on this blog. Two of my friends have been missing the roleplays, and so we’re getting back into it. I’m going to work HARD on that novel and I’m going to believe that I’m good enough for it. I’m going to be selective in what I read. Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, inspire me. God knit us from the same threads.

I think that when I get back to writing every day, my brain will ease up a little. Maybe my words will be graceful again. Hopefully I will be able to tap into my alternate reality without losing sight of this one, as I often did before. We’ll see.