Beneath the sheets of paper lies my truth: writing fiction

I think I was always a writer, always wanted to be, just didn´t know if I could.  Either way, I wrote mentally long before I actually started. It´s a common thing among writers, I guess. Not trying to be pretentious, but I once read an essay by George Orwell, where he mentioned that, he was always creating stories from scenes of his everyday life. Because that´s where literature exists and breaths. We can be heroes, just for one day, a song by David Bowie. And that´s true. Literature is happening everyday around us, we just have to be aware. In a way, a writer is like a photographer. We need a snapshot, a sparkle that triggers the creative process, and then we continue from there, we create new lives.

 I have several of these in my mind, mundane things, faces that passed me by, sentences I´ve heard, colors, odors. I can´t help it, it´s something I´ve done without even noticing. I am always collecting memories, and I keep them stored for an occasion I can use them.  

There´s also music. Many of the stories I wrote came from lyrics I´ve heard, songs I love. Listening to them helped me creating situations where those songs would be playing; a break up, a love scene, or something completely different where a certain part of the lyrics fits perfectly. It is incredible, exciting, and almost magical. All of a sudden, I see the characters, I visualize the plot, I hear their voices, and then I know; It´s time to let the process flow. I have to tell that story.

The stories are not mine. Not autobiographical, I mean. It always amazed me how difficult it is for readers to understand that. I don´t want to write about my life. No way, that would be boring. Citing Orwell for a second time, but I think he must always be mentioned, good writers are invisible. It´s the story that counts and that just reminds me of Oscar Wilde and one of his brilliant sayings, I guess he was thinking about poets, but it is valid to all writers: the good ones are pale figures, really insignificant. Why? Because they´re not worried about being, they´re busy creating.   

Once the story is there ready to be read, it gains its own life. What a wonderful thing that is, giving voices to characters, bringing them to life.   

As I said, I always wanted to write. I never thought I could, though. But one thing about writing is that it is a hard-wired condition. Writers are born writers and one cannot escape or ignore this urge for too long.

Once I started, I could never stop. I just finished my first book. Sixteen short stories. Slices of other people´s lives, ready to get known by others, probably very few others, but that doesn´t bother me.  

I love what I do. And I do cause I love, I cannot live from what I write, but then I remember Monterroso. For him, getting paid for writing was something surreal and almost indecent. Anyway,  I am truly myself when I write, and that reminded me of a song by Regina Spektor, “beneath the sheets of paper lies my truth”. That´s exactly it.