Musings.

I have not been doing much lately, battling both a severe ailment and setbacks at work.

However, my mind has been running crazy all over the place. So many different ideas, and yet it always seems like so little time to sort through them and make them work.

My imagination knows no bounds, I swear. Though I did discover that I have to rein it in sometimes, for my own sanity.

Every story that I write, I tend to throw myself into the characters to make sure that their emotions and responses are real. I never go into something with a set plan, nor do I already dictate how things go. I generally start with a basis point A and a hopeful point Z. All of the rest just happens as the characters develop. Sometimes I will intend for a character to be hulking and strong and confident, but the character just doesn't agree. They all have their own lives and feelings.

However, due to the fact that I do envelop myself in the emotions and thoughts of my characters, I must be very careful on what I write about. Again, my imagination and my ability to emphasize and relate to my characters is immensely powerful.

I was recently letting the Evanescence song "My Immortal" just wash over me and considering the story that the song and music video tell. For those not in the know (I feel sorry for you), the song depicts a young man walking through town and the places of his life singing to his love who follows along behind him. The trick is that the person he loves is dead, and so she is just hopelessly watching as he deals with the pain and mourns her loss and how he can still feel her nearby but remains all alone.

It is a very powerful message and song, and my mind starting thinking about doing a story in reverse. Depicting the thoughts and the song of the lost one, instead of from the perspective of the bereaved. As I began to sink into the character, I found myself facing such a desolate wall of emotion, despair and utter chaos that I had to pull back hard and break the immersion. My mind began conjuring just what hurt and loss and utter failure I would feel if I had died and followed my family or loved ones with no way to communicate.

The scene that I discovered was so absolutely horrible and wrenching that I have learned to never peek into that world again. While often my writings ring true and strike against the heart for their willingness to discover and explain the pain of loss and failure, doing it from the perspective of one without hope is a task that I shall never again attempt.

It is the fact that we remain that gives us strength, even with our broken hearts and even when it seems that there is no answer for the horrors we face. There will always be that one accomplishment, however minor it might seem, that 'We still live'.

And now, I just hold to that. No matter what you face, no matter the problems and the issues that come before you. Despite the worst of pains and the most agonizing of heartbreaks, find that kernel of hope. You are still alive.