Reality

So I've found myself questioning the definition of reality lately.  I know that seems really contrived and overdone, but I'm serious.  The dreams I've been having, my perceptions of myself and other people, all of them are getting very... warped, I guess.  I'm questioning what's real and what I might be misinterpreting, or maybe even making up entirely in my own head.  As a writer I've always had a majorly overactive imagination and I've always been able to view the world through different lenses and levels.  But now especially, I seem to be seeing everything as entirely subjective and relative.  And if everything is subjective and relative, if everything is open to interpretation, if everything can be brought down to a simple matter of opinion... Is anything truly "real" outside our own heads?

As a writer of historical fiction, its basically, my job to represent perfect, living reality through an imperfect, fictional lens.  I have to show the tumultuous, unpredictable, nonsensical rhythm of life in an ordered, organized, and logical manner.  Its not nearly as easy as it seems.  Even now, writing about real life, I don't know quite what I'm doing.  What sounds good or makes sense to me, might not sound good or make sense to anyone else.  Thats when my mind starts warping things.  I start trying to say, "Well if I do it THIS way then maybe these other people will like it," but then that always begs to age-old question of how do you please everybody when everything is subjective and just comes down to a matter of opinion?  You can't.  As a writer, I figured this out and accepted it a very long time ago.  But as someone who is OCD and a perfectionist, I have the urge to fight it every step of the way.  It really makes writing suck, since all you want to do is be good at it, maybe even good enough to be taken seriously and be published.  But in the end, its usually not about how well you write or how good your story is.  Its how well you play by someone else's rules when they're holding all the cards and they're the only one with the rule book.

I know that no one is really reading this aside from Skyler since she's my friend.  But next post I'm going to put up something I've written.  I don't know what it'll be yet but it'll be something recent and... If anyone is out there reading... which I don't think there are... Feel free to post comments or something about it.  I don't care about being gentle - I just ask for honesty.

Mmkay?  Ta.