RANT: How Being a Writer Totally Screws With My Brain

I am just going to come out and say it.  I am writing this like three months in advance.  And by doing so I am totally just deciding not to do the blogs I am actually supposed to be typing.  And this might be a shorter rant but I just need to say this!

OK.  So I am a writer in my spare time.  I invent characters and create a life and world for them.  If you were to ever take a trip to my brain you would see so many things that you would be scarred for life.  Writers are in control of their stories, for the most part, and my life is honestly starting to feel like a bit of a story.  My personality seems whacked and I can think of so many reasons  not to hang out with people  from school that I can’t even count.  The first, and most prominent, reason is that I have a different personality at school than I do at home.  At school I am less loud, less likely to threaten to kill people, wouldn’t dare to speak up against or for something.  At home (and in my second home AKA the internet) I am loud, threaten to kill people, actually hurt people when they cross too many lines, and speak up to a point where I am literally awaiting the death threats in my email ( kenzi.blog.contact@gmail.com ).  So to round what I just said up into a slightly easier to understand sentence I will say this: I created a second me, because it is in my nature to create characters, however it is a true surprise how far that character went.

Did you know that the good thing about creating all these characters is that it really can be quite fun.  The creation, seeing them become a person in your head, writing down the story for them.  But then, you tend to fall in love with the character.  You have made them from your heart, know exactly where their story is going because you came up with it, but you just don’t want it to go down that path again.  And then you sit there for hours trying to talk yourself into typing that page, and all it takes is a look at the ending and you’ve made up your mind.  All of this because I fall in love with my fictional characters, the one that dance through my head with witty comebacks I use when needed, new ways of thinking, all types of things because their hair color, eyes and name are only the beginning to how real these characters can get.

Which brings me back to my previous topic.  The character I invented as a mask for myself is named Mackenzie.  Not Kenzie, Kenz or Kenzers.  Some people get to see Kenzi when they open up their eyes and get to know me.  Only one person at my school.  One out of more than a thousand.  And we’re not best friends.  We’re only in the same math class.  But Jay is great so I let him in a bit, not all the way but he got to see the loud, overly expressive girl I hide inside Mackenzie.

But this rant doesn’t just stop there.  No.  Writing is a lot more than making a character.  Even if that character seems so real.  It’s still not done.  That character needs a story.  A plot.  That is what is so great about writing.  The author is nearly always in control of what happens.  Sure, sometimes those characters will make their own decisions and without the writer noticing the story has taken a change for the better.  But even so the story mostly stays on track.  I have always made up a single character, gave them a friend and then wrote.  After a few pages of just plain junk I sit down, with a strong main character with me, and wrote down the plot.  I know the end before it comes, heck sometimes I write the end first just to get it out of the way or because I have an idea.

However, in my life, no matter how real Mackenzie seems I just can’t make her a plot and write her story.  If I got to pick her story and make it just the way I wanted than I would have Mackenzie disappear and Kenz come out and be all “Ka-Pow!”  But for some reason I can’t.  Kenz doesn’t want to show herself to everyone at school.  I am not afraid.  I won’t back down from them.  And Mackenzie is slowly leaving.  But not fast enough!

I want to sit down and write that plot.  I have tried so many times.

• Kenz gets rid of Mackenzie
• Kenz comes out
• 5.0 GPA
• College
• Masters Degree
• Job

But that doesn’t feel real.  Because life is never that easy for me.  When writing a story I pick three major problems, most the time, and write them and come up with a plot around them.  But in the short time I have been alive I have had so many more than three problems.  And worst of all, unlike in writing, I can’t just see into the future and know everything ends in a certain way.  I have no idea how to act with my life because I don’t know where it is leading.  And maybe this doesn’t bother most people.  But I am not most people.  I am that girl with two personalities.  I am the girl who is trying to WRITE her life.  So, yeah, I am very different and can’t wait to see how my life turns out.  But until then my writing tendencies might drive me crazy!  Why can’t I just write myself a nice romance?