There are days when everything is crashing down around me and I just want to run away, to escape, break something, throw something, blow something up.
But I’m an adult. I’m ‘responsible’. I can’t do these things. Not in real life…
Instead, I grab a notebook or open my computer.
I start a story.
One where I can pack up everything in my car and run away. One where I can throw a mug against a wall and watch it crash. One where everything is blown to smithereens.
I create characters and make everything so much worse for them than they are in real life.
Then I blow everything up! It could be an actual explosion, or it could simply be that I make their lives fall to pieces…
Then, sometimes I rebuild things.
Sometimes I leave everything in rubble.
By the time I have finished writing, I am feeling better. The world doesn’t look so bleak. I can pick myself up and keep going, having given all my frustrations to my characters.
The chances that anyone will ever read what I’ve written is slim. I may revisit that story one day and clean it up and turn it into a novel. There is a higher likelihood that it will just sit there, doing nothing much other than take up some space.
That was not the point of writing that piece. The point was my mental health. The point was to give my stress an outlet, somewhere to go.
After all, who doesn’t want aliens to come and blow up the school when you’re having a bad day there?
