A daydreamers journey to writing

Why does he write?

It's a question that the day dreamer thinks about from time to time. He looks back to when his writing began.

He wished he could say that he always had a passion for writing. That he was that kid who could spend hours writing down stories or documenting their thoughts on a page. But that would be a lie. The truth was writing kind of annoyed him. His writing experience back then was a bunch of attempts at a journal and creative writing essays at school.

The journal attempts failed because he though he didn't have anything interesting going on in his life to write about ,as for the essays, it took him a while to come up with something interesting that matched the prompt that was given. Often, time would run out before he could finish, and when he did he usually got a average grade. On occasion, he would get a eight out of ten or a 7 out of ten but those where few and far in between. Honestly, with the way he wrote sometimes, his friends are surprised he pasted grammar at all. He has a friend who writes poetry. Sad, depressing poetry. But they were so good. This friend has a command over words that really makes you feel the emotions he wrestles with in his life. Its something the day dreamer wish he had , but he didn't , at least not as accurately.

Now daydreams, those were always there In a time where the internet and cable TV were regarded (at least by him) as things only found in well off households, he and his best friend would spend their after school afternoons acting out adventurers in fantasy worlds, daydreaming about epic adventures, facing terrifying foes, and saving people. The type of stories you would expect from children that age. Sometimes, the stories were based on other stories they had seen; other times, they were a world entirely of their own creation. They would act them out, though thinking about it now, maybe acting out wasn't the best way to put it . It was more like they just ran about, coming up with the story as they went along, completely immersed in their own world. He would even have these daydreams on his own, when he was bored and had no one to play with.


As time went on, and the age where these acts were socially acceptable had passed, the daydreams persisted.. He learned not to walk around while immersed in them, at least not in public, anyways. Staying still while having them was a challenge, and he usually had to fidget in some way. - During his breaks and lunches in the tail end of his school years, he would just sit in his classroom, fooling around with his pen, muttering the story to himself as quietly as possible. No doubt, this behavior caused him to be seen ​as strange by his peers. He couldn't blame them. It was strange even to himself.

He didn't stop, though. Whether it was a matter of can't, or won't, he couldn't say. All he knew was that the daydreams were a source of comfort for him. They were there to free him from the grip of loneliness. They helped him past the times when he was waiting for something or someone. They would distract him from his troubles. Sometimes, it felt like they were the only things that kept him going during the day.. As his teenage days transitioned to young adulthood, and he discovered other things like video games and comics to keep his mind busy, he always went back to daydreams.

The thing was, just a few months before, he had come to terms with the fact that these comforts weren't free, and that they expected something back. His sweet day dreams were no longer satisfied with just being his. They wanted freedom, freedom from the cage that was his own mind, so that other's could experience them as well. He tried to resist, at first. He had no business being a writer, or an artist of any kind. He had no business being a writer or a artist of any kind.Those things were better left for other people, more talented people than he could hope to be. But the daydreams wouldn't hear of it. They scratch and clawed at his mind, demanding release. As crazy as that sounded, that is what it felt like to him.

So why does he write?

In part, to repay the debt he owes. To, hopefully, take these dreams, and make them into something real - something more. But also, maybe to prove himself wrong. Maybe, just maybe, writing could be for him, too.

Edited by user Tiffany Dowell