A Rant About Playing

 

      Sometimes, I miss the days when writing was just a game. When I used to tell epic tales of battles and kingdoms using only my stuffed animals and my hyperactive imagination. I started writing merely as an extension of that. At first, I wrote to record the history of my stuffed animal’s dynasty (they had a rich history). The logical next step was to write new stories as well. The difference was that in writing, I had unlimited characters, lands, and stories I could explore. It wasn’t a chore; it was playtime. Yes, I made my parents read every single solitary word I wrote (heaven bless them), but it was mostly for myself. Then, due mostly to my over sharing, my love of telling stories turned into my “talent for writing”. The problem is, adults tend to see present talents as hints of a possible future career and my creative tendencies immediately demonstrated that I would be a writer. At first, I loved this idea, getting paid to have fun and tell stories? What could be better than that? And writing definitely wouldn’t get in the way of my other career goals to be the first woman president of the United States and an astronaut (I was a little ambitious back then). But, here’s the problem – when something becomes a future career. It stops being playtime and starts becoming work.

      By the time I was 13 I’d written 2 novels, a one-act play and a host of false starts, random spurts of dialogue, short stories, and terrible poems. Then my perfectionism, procrastinating tendencies, and mental health demanded that I take a 2-year stint of doing almost nothing except “revise” my second novel. I couldn’t write a word with the judgment of future readers looking over my shoulder. I was trapped by what they would think if they read my writing.

      By the end of junior year, I’d figured some stuff out about myself and realized that the time when I would need to support myself with my writing was rushing ever closer. I needed to pick up the pace. The problem was that by that time my youthful confidence in my writing had been shattered, as was my ability to be able to look past my own imperfections long enough to get words onto the page. Something needed to change. I remembered the days when writing had been fun. When I was telling myself a story rather than agonizing over how mythical readers would interpret my work. Then, I had one of the very few moments in my life that could legitimately count as a moment of clarity. Why couldn’t I just go back to those days? Make a character and tell myself their story, completely cutting out the intrusive eyes of the reader. Surely, I hadn’t forgotten how to do it.

     So, I made a character and put him in the most ridiculous scene I could think of. A courthouse, and he was on trial for doing something criminal. What was it? Who cares, I was just playing. The only person who could get him set free was his friend who has some useful information that would prove his innocence (again this story wasn’t about the complexities of the legal system; it was just an excuse to write). But there was a problem. That friend and our main character (he would eventually be named Mark Cassidy who’s initials MC, oddly enough also stand for main character) weren’t talking. They’d gotten into an argument and Mark wasn’t sure he’d actually come. Then cue the friend (Theodore as he’d eventually be called) trying to dramatically burst into the courtroom, and failing (my suspension of disbelief could only go so far). Luckily, this judge didn’t care about court rules and tradition and was willing to let Theo in. He delivered some key information that proved that Mark couldn’t possible be guilty and then accepted Mark’s marriage proposal, because how else would I end such a dramatic scene? The end. Roll credits. I looked up from the keyboard to see that I’d written several pages without noticing the passage of time. The fun was back.

      Looking back on this scene is hilarious. They’re completely out of character (the responsible, traditional Theodore would never let the scatterbrained Mark propose (he’d probably forget the ring anyway)). There also is a fair bit of complete bumbling of how the justice system works. But it was enough to get me going and keep me going. For months I wrote page after page of the unlikely adventures of an ever expanding group of characters which would eventually come to include a girl named Poly who constantly talks to her hallucinations as if they’re real people, a criminal who thinks he’s James Bond, and a not so evil genius named Hopkins and his loyal and sarcastic companion Faulkner who has never lost a game of Battleship in his life. Someday, I might turn their story into some form of media consumable by others, but even if they never leave my own brain, heart, and computer hard drive, they’ve done their job. They got me writing again. Even though several years have passed, if I ever have a dry spell, they quickly show me the joy that writing brought me in the first place, and give me the inspiration I need to continue.

       So, here’s the point of my long-winded rant. Writing for other people is great, but sometimes, just play. Don’t worry about other people “not getting it” or not liking it, because if one person is having fun, that’s enough.