“Once upon a time…”
Whenever I have heard or read those words I’ve expected something magical to happen.
I look forward to being swept away by the breeze of creative brilliance to fall down a rabbit-hole, or to cross the threshold into another realm while standing in the middle of a crowded train station. I anticipate losing myself and finding myself in an imaginative escapade where I’ll laugh, worry and return to tell everyone I know, “you just have to go there!”
Be it a castle tucked away behind a mystical veil where a select few learn about witchcraft and wizardry, or a fantasy realm in Middle Earth where hobbits and humans live among dwarves, elves and talking trees! There’s an immeasurable wonder to the imagination of the human mind where anything is possible and we come away hoping that maybe… just maybe, some of it will spill over into our reality and enhance the experience of our lives.
This is where we writers of fiction come into play! (Both literally and figuratively speaking). When the colors of creativity splash from the pages of fantasia and cascade onto the canvas of our lives we are granted the opportunity to paint whatever picture we want to paint.
Have you considered what you’re planning to do with your paint brush?
I know I have and I’m as excited about sharing it with the world as you are, I’m sure!
I often lie in bed and relive the adventure my characters experienced and wonder where I found the light to guide them along their journey. I mull over the revisions, contemplating if my characters are relatable, funny, real, imperfect and believable enough for readers to fall in love with them.
I read through one of my manuscripts and feel myself fall into that era during the dawn of civilization when the winds of earth blew through valleys and across desert plains; bringing the scent of a mystical breeze that intoxicated the ancients and inspired the fables they later left for us on stone tablets and parchment.
I feel my soul fill with enthusiasm when the many possibilities of sub-plots begin to unfold prematurely in my mind then a growing anxiety kicks in when I feel that I can’t get to my laptop fast enough to begin typing before I must rush off and tend to my responsibilities as a father, and employee.
There are moments when I feel as though there aren’t enough hours in the day for me to continue constructing the stage where my story will play out and I wonder how soon will theoretical physicists figure out time-travel or wormholes into a parallel universe. This way I may either travel back in time to one of the best opportunities I had some alone time to write, or to convince my-past-self to tell everyone in his reality that he’s going to be taking a nap and should not be disturbed so he could join me back in this realm and fill in for me whilst I focus on writing.
Sounds a bit selfish, doesn’t it?
I know but I can’t help it! My need…my desire…my ambition to write, and write successfully, consumes the coal of my creativity and generates the steam necessary to fuel my ambition and propel me forward like the Hogwarts Express to that magical place where something wonderful, scary and memorable happens.
It’s who I am. It’s what I am. And my fellow writers surely must agree with me that we cherish creating those memories as much as we indulge journeying through someone else’s fantasy so that we may return and tell our friends, our families and even our children that we were there, too… “Once upon a time!”
“Promise me you’ll never forget me because if I thought you would, then I’d never leave.” ~Winnie the Pooh
Felix Alexander Writer 