Sometimes it's hard to focus on so many things at once; things can get jumbled up a lot. The mind has crazy ways of making you pay for overloading it so much. So it's best to take things step by step. For instance, our world is built on creativity, but the first step is dreams. Dreams have to be out there to inspire creativity and make our visions a reality. But before anything is real, it’s a dream, and sometimes those dreams can be royal nightmares. Especially if your chosen path has led you to being a professional dreamer: a.k.a. a writer. If you do choose to go this route, let’s just say there are definitely some side effects for a creative mind.
Like waking up in the middle of the night screaming, or seeing the same tragic event play out in your head a thousand times like the worst part of a movie. Oh, and writer’s block is hell on my soul, my soul I tell you! And I hear voices in my head.
Yeah, OK, I know how that sounds. But for you to believe anything I’m about to tell you, we need to get one thing straight. I am not crazy. I am perfectly sane...technically speaking.
It all started with a pen and a piece of paper on what seemed to be a regular Monday morning, and man I hated Mondays, with no car, I started walking to work.
I arrived to the office five minutes late and pushed past everything and everyone to get to my desk. My hairs were standing on end and my nerves were still frayed to the edges. I just wanted to write some pages for my manuscript then get out of there as fast as possible.
“Siren,” the shrill voice said cutting through my nerves, “What have I told you about getting personal things sent to the office? Take these flowers out of here as soon as you can.”
I turned toward my boss and cringed at the sight of her makeup-caked face. Then my gaze moved to the blood-red roses she was holding, muttering a quick “thank you” and “it won’t happen again,” I grabbed the flowers from her hands and stared at them in confusion. I hadn’t really done anything in my life to warrant flowers, so who sent them? My eyes zeroed in on the card in the middle of bouquet; I couldn't explain it but my sense of unease had returned with a vengeance I could no longer ignore. I ripped the card from the flowers and practically ran for the front door. When I got outside, I took a deep breath to calm down; my eyes strayed to the card in my hand and I had no choice but to read it.
My blood chilled in my veins, I flipped the card to see who it was from. My fear was instantly replaced by relief; the card was from Kane, my character. Someone was exacting a really elaborate joke. I laughed nervously with a bit of hysteria creeping in and turned to go back inside, but someone was blocking the door. Suddenly all of that relief vanished and was replaced by a hollow emptiness. I don't know how I knew, I mean the only place I’d seen his brown hair and green eyes was in my head, but I knew that this was Jaxon.
Now see, normally I’d be jumping for joy at the thought that my character had come to life, except that he looked angry -- like really angry. Not to mention he got on all fours and started to shift into his werewolf form. I should’ve been halfway to Timbuktu by now, but there was just one stray thought that crossed my mind: I never wrote that he could shift at will. But as soon as he snarled, my brain turned off and my feet turned on; I was gone, I made the wind feel ashamed it wasn’t going as fast as me. When I felt my thighs burning and was at least seven blocks away, I chanced a look behind me. Jaxon was gone but I still kept running, right until I ran into a solid wall of muscle. It knocked the wind out of me and made me see stars. I struggled to sit up right and my eyes traveled up, up, and up to the face of the guy that made me fall.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me!” I nearly screamed up at him.
The assailant in question just arched his eyebrow, and he did it in the same annoying way that I had written for him to do it. This, ladies and gentlemen, was my vampire Nikolai. His jet black hair was the same color as his eyes. Now, see I know that I wrote his eyes to be black with the intention of scaring his enemies, but I never thought I’d be on the receiving end of one of those stares. It was terrifying, to say the least. Slowly I moved to a standing position and he just suddenly reached down and lifted me up none-too-gently onto my feet. I was so stunned, I had absolutely nothing to say, which he seemed fine with because he was just staring at me with those freaking eyes! That deserves an immediate rewrite!
“Well, what do you want, because if you’re gonna chase me, can I get a head start? You know, what with your vampire speed and all.” I addressed him ‘cause he was just, well, just standing there.
“I want you to give me back my life that you so cruelly took from me,” Nikolai said in a deep rumble that did not sound like the voice I gave him in my head. But then his words finally processed and I did a double take.
“Wait, what? I haven't done anything to your life, I’ve barely even written a backstory for you yet,” I argued back to my character, my character! Can you believe this? I’m arguing with an imaginary figure that I created about how I wrote his story! The nerve!
“It doesn't matter,” he said in that voice that I did not write, “What you have written is bad enough,” he finished.
“OK, ouch,” I said offended. “Way to wreck my already diminishing pride. And second of all-” I didn't even bother to finish that sentence, I just ran. And by the way I saw him trying to come after me, I knew I had made the right choice. So once again, I was running.
This time I ran till I could see my house looming in the distance, I didn't even want to think about how far I just ran or I’m pretty sure I would puke. But finally I reached the door to my house, my inner sanctum, and OH! I could have cried for joy. That is, until I got in my living room and was greeted by two teenagers, a boy and a girl. Hoping against hope that it was two normal kids who broke into my house to steal my jewelry, I knew who it was without even seeing their faces. So I just walked in and braced myself for the challenge before me.
“All right, let’s get this over with. What do you two want?” I asked, surprised at the harsh tone my voice had taken.
Both Kane and Eve turned around to face me. They were both very good looking, and they looked so much alike it was eerie. Same mahogany brown hair and crystal blue eyes. Yep, it was the dangerous duo I had just seen in my head this morning. Kane was the first to speak to me, albeit, in the sarcastic tone I had written for him. I was learning quickly how these little things irked me about my characters.
“Well hello, Siren, did you enjoy the roses?” Kane asked, not impolitely.
“I’m not really into flowers and you almost got me fired,” I responded un-phased at his comment and thinly veiled threat.
“Oh, Kane she’s being so mean. I thought she’d be nicer,” Eve said in a whiny voice, addressing her brother.
I completely balked at that accusation and almost gagged at her voice. It was supposed to be deceptively sweet as sugar, but that whiny tone made me want to do a complete rewrite and possibly kill her off.
“How dare you!” Eve suddenly snapped at me.
My eyes grew as wide as saucers. “No way, no freaking way,” I screamed, “Tell me you did not just read my mind right now!”
Eve just smiled, “Well I could tell you that...but I’d be lying.”
I slowly backed away until I could feel the banister to the stairs behind me. I turned and sprinted to my bedroom. I flung open my door and came face to face with an angry werewolf and a peeved off vampire. I decided that the bratty twins downstairs would be the lesser of two evils, so I tried to make a U-turn and run back the way I came, when I saw the little jerks blocking my path.
“OK, look here you little ungrateful brats! I don't know why you’ve all decided to invade my reality, but let’s get something straight, I write the story, so I make the decisions. Now, I don't know what you all want, but I’m not doing it.” My statement was met by silence, until Jax shifted back to human form, fully clothed and said something that left me utterly confused.
“Siren,” he began patiently, “Have you ever heard of quantum mechanics?”
Everybody just stared at Jaxon silently before it was Kane, not me, that said something.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“She is the writer creating multiple realities and we are all results of those realities. So if we extinguish the maker of the reality then. . .” Jaxon just left that statement hanging in the room like a thick cloud of impending doom. I knew what all of them were gonna do before it happened, so I acted first. I ran past Kane and Eve, practically falling down the stairs in my haste to get to my office perpendicular to my kitchen island. It was already up so all I had to do was find their individual stories. Jaxon’s was first, I saw his first chapter. I highlighted the last four paragraphs of my latest chapter for Jaxon and pressed backspace. Just as he got down the stairs and shifted himself to pounce on me, he vanished, he just disappeared into the ether. Yes! It worked!
Next I moved to Nikolai's story and highlighted almost the whole page. I took three seconds to strap on my headset and turn on my Dragon Writer because they were pounding through my house. Next thing I knew, Nikolai grabbed me by the shoulders and lifted me into the air, preparing to toss me, and I practically screamed into the headset. “Delete!” And then the automated voice saying “document deleted” was a sweet relief as Nikolai vanished and then I crashed to the floor.
Next came Kane and Eve down the stairs and this situation was a bit harder. I hadn’t written anything for them because I just came up with their backstories this morning.
“Give it up,” Kane said, “There’s nothing for you to erase about us.”
And that’s when I had the idea, thank you Jaxon and your quantum physics.
“You’re right. There’s nothing to erase but I can definitely write.” I brought the headset closer to my mouth and started creating my own reality.
“Kane and Eve forgot that they had broken their legs less than five hours ago and crumpled to a heap trying to support their weight.”
I watched as their eyes widened before they fell to the ground groaning. I knew that it worked, so no more playing around.
“The twins had failed in their first mission but realized that it was for the better. They closed their eyes and focused on their home before vanishing into thin air, only to return home and remember nothing.” I watched in awe and a little sadness as both Kane and Eve disappeared just as I had spoken it onto my computer. It was finally over.
I shut down my computer and took off my headset. My characters were back in their own realities and all was right with mine...relatively speaking.
Everyone has a story and a vision with the privilege of telling our stories and giving our visions to the world. Making our own realities to share with others is fun, just try and be careful not to mix too many realities into one because the result is not always a good one. But, I guess those are just the side effects of having a writer’s mind.
