Inside a writer’s mind

Before an idea is formed in the mind of a writer, there is nothing to show what is about to happen.

“In the beginning there was chaos!”

Soon afterwards a hero comes to life, “In the beginning there was light, then!” and a little later more heroes are born, they will slowly, slowly contribute to the story, they will help. All these heroes will surround a leading man or a leading woman; they will all have characteristics borrowed from other people, either real or imaginary people.

Later, these heroes will acquire their own personality and they will decide how to act in their “lives”. So, when the writers is strolling around,carefree, or while he is drinking his coffee together with his friends, a voice will echo inside his head telling him how this particular hero wishes to behave and what the writer should actually (write) do…..

It may sound paranoid but…here is an example!

“I want to get married, to get a divorce, to fall in love, to make love, to kiss him, to caress her hair, to hear the palm of his heart, to feel her warmth, to feel his touch, to swim with him in the river, or even better in the lake or in the sea because I am afraid of dark waters…. to climb on mountains, to climb down from mountains, to go for rafting, to live in now, to live in the past and in the future, to travel to Asia, to Africa, to New Zealand –not to Australia, there are spiders there and I hate spiders- to move to Rome, to Paris, to New York, to Jamaica in order to drink Caipirinha all day long, better place me in Mexico in order to drink Marguerites and to eat tasty burritos.. to live in an island with a view of the sea or better on a mountain at a wooden hut hidden in the woods… I am beautiful but I luck self confidence, I am ugly and sickly but I have a good heart and everybody loves me! I have blue eyes, or even better green-blue eyes that shine like emeralds in the morning sun! My hair is blond and long, or now that I think of it, better brown at the height of my chin! My name is George, John, Thanasis, Vangelis, Mary, Melpomene but please don’t name me Urania or Terpsichore because I will be compared to a Muse, I am not tall but I am curvy, I have muscular arms and tight muscles, all women desire me, but no-one will ever have me, I want to die, or, even better, to kill myself, to jump from the fifth floor, but what if I don’t get killed and remain an invalid? What then? So it is better to take pills… what if the pills destroy my stomach and an unbearable pain starts, what shall I do then? Smile, life is beautiful, forget the loans and the liabilities, live, live like me, live inside the imaginary world of a book, let me show you a better world, let me guide you to places that no man has ever stepped his foot, fly with me in the sky! I love you, I hate you, I adore you, I am me, you are you, we are one, we are all, we….”

Many times the heroes get indignant and come into conflict with the writer and there a really tough war begins, where truly horrid battles take place, who will prevail, who will survive? Who is the strongest, who will get tired first, the hero or the writer? Who will finally decide if the hero will fall in love or if he will die? Who is the one that takes the final decisions?

“But the writer of course! What a stupid question!”, you might think…..

I am sorry, so sorry if I will disappoint you, but the decisions are not taken by the writer but by the hero who was born inside a cell within the labyrinthine mind of the writer.

Personally, I, (Christos) did not want to kill one of my heroes in my first book “The switchman and the son of the moon”, I loved him immensely and I wanted to keep him till the end of the story, but he visited me, he was torturing my thoughts for a long time and he was begging me “Please kill me, I have fulfilled my part, I don’t want to live any longer…”

Another time, in my second book “3 (Three)” I killed a heroine and I wrote the “END”, but she could not accept it and she was torturing my thoughts for quite a while….”Please, why did you kill me? Why? Why? Don’t kill me, put me in a coma and let me there, just don’t kill me!” So, that is how I acted. Perhaps unconsciously I was probably thinking about the sequel of this book, you might tell me. No, I don’t wish to write a sequel for this particular book and I certainly don’t wish to make my heroine recover from coma. I just could not avoid obeying her wish.

So, a writer is a madman, you might say, he hears voices, so he should be confided in an asylum… Well, luckily things are not always like that; there are certain periods that these things happen and then we are talking about periods of inspiration and creativity!

I hope I managed to give you an insight!

P.S. If a writer ignores you, don’t hold it against him, if he wishes to remain alone, don’t press him for contact, he has his voices to keep him company.

http://anastasopouloschris.wix.com/christos

Translation by Stella Hatzi