The Reason and the Why

The Reason and the Why

I can’t claim to have many fans of my writing. I think everyone who publishes would like to think that there’s this group of people absolutely chomping at the bit for the next release but I am not much for lying to myself. Those people just don’t exist for me. I have people that support what I do but I don’t really have fans. Ah, well, maybe I have one. There’s a little old lady from the Flint area that writes really lovely poetry who I met years and years ago at an open mic event and whenever I see her we talk for a little while. She is, I think, a fan of the Meep Sheep books. I remember after I finished the second book, The Kreep Sheep, she kept asking me when the next was coming and for a long time I wasn’t sure. I ran into her again this past summer and she made sure to pick up the last of the Meep books and all was well with the world.

I think.

I ran into her again two weeks back at Flint’s monthly Art Walk and she had read The Last Sheep and had questions for me. Questions I didn’t necessarily have answers for. It was frustrating at first but then I realized that this was someone so invested in the series that she had genuine, thoughtful questions for me. It’d be great if I had clear and simple answers to give her but that fact was that I didn’t. I don’t. And that’s OK.

The thing about my writing is that it’s all done by ‘feel’. That’s how I approach anything artistic I do. I don’t necessarily have a plan, I just dive in and see what happens. With the last Meep book I had lots of ideas but a lot of them changed and I know the core of the plot was jettisoned. Not because I didn’t like it, I think it would have been a compelling book, it just didn’t fit the story that was unfolding. And that’s how I write. I sure as heck don’t know if I am any GOOD at it but that’s how I write – by feel. I keep thinking of things from my zombie novel Cemetery Earth that bother me until I force myself to remember that I know how I write, and why I make the choices I make. I just need to trust myself. I was thinking about the ending of CE last night and was pondering why I made a certain choice and was worried for a moment about the believability of the ending but reminded myself – it’s a book. It’s a story. It’s not reality. If people want reality they can go read a biography or some such. A story works by its own rules and logic and if it keeps to those rules and to that logic then you can’t worry about the rest. It doesn’t mean everyone will like those rules and that logic. It doesn’t mean that anyone will. But if the story is true to itself then that’s all you can ask. Sure, we all read a book that drives us crazy but it’s usually because it broke its own rules. No one wants to pick up a Winnie the Pooh book where Pooh Bear is never discovered when he gets stuck in his tree’s knothole and he dies there. It breaks the rules of the story. Saying all that I’d love to have all the answers as to why I write things the way I do but, honestly, I don’t really think about what things mean, I write what feels right and let it go at that. Now, maybe that’s a mistake but heck, if I am not going to be disrupting some huge fanbase and creating internet havoc somewhere then who cares?

Saying all this though it’s nice when someone does have thoughtful questions and general curiosity about something you pour so much of your heart into. That’s a thing someone could get used to.

…c…

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