When I write I ………

When I write I lose myself in my writing. I own the whole world. I am flying, I am free and I am in charge.

I have the power within me to travel wherever I want – to be whoever I want. I create characters, put them into situations, and breathe life and strength and purpose into them. I am each of them but they are not me. They are themselves.

I am so fortunate to be a writer. When everything in my own life is going wrong I have developed this miraculous ability to escape into a different life.

I love writing fiction because I am fascinated by people and finding out what makes them tick. I want to know what journeys my characters have had through life before we met, why they are with me now and what journeys still lie ahead of them. I genuinely believe that they are just passing by at a time when I just happen to be there. For the space of the play, short story or novel I put them into we blend into each other, then I write “Curtain” or “The End” and we go our separate ways – unless they have died during our time together.

Did I kill them? Did I cut their lives short or was it just the natural time for their journeys to end? I don’t know.

Sometimes I put them into another book and we meet each other again like old friends. 

That, too, I enjoy.

Evelyn Hood