Am I write?!

I've been thinking about things to write for a new post. Have I done anything "noteworthy or mentionable" in the last few days that warrants me to write something for the whole five people that read this blog? (Thanks moms and dads!) Probably not. Maybe. I'm not sure. At this moment I feel the need to quote something someone told me at a time when I was sure I was going to be a motivational speaker/rich and famous novelist.

"Writing gives you a freedom nothing else can."

This phrase took on extra meaning after this weekend.

While Ty slaved over a textbook, I became slave to a trilogy. The Hunger Games. Literally, all day for three days I only took pause to bathe myself, eat, sleep, and go to church. It was like the author played a game with me that made me continually hungry for the book. But I really was a slave. I was a slave to the story. When I began reading the books, I immersed myself in the writing. What the main character did, I did. What she felt, I felt. What she saw, I saw. All of these feelings were only intensified by my own imagination I was adding to the writing. I was slave to Suzanne Collins' whims. No matter how much I desperately wanted to do something different in the story or see a different outcome, I couldn't. I was in a land of hard truths, no exceptions, no changes--a book.

You probably think I'm crazy right now. "It's just a book!" Right? Wrong. It was my life, my story, for three days. Every time I pick up a book, I leave my mundane world of tests and assignments, basic bodily functions, and I become someone else: a warrior, a lover, a fiend, a friend, with a whole new set of friends, morals, and motives. It's incredibly enjoyable (most of the time), but it's submitting yourself to the power of the author. Here, the author has a moral obligation to protect the reader from hardship, or at least mourn with them in the story and give closure.

This is why I like writing so much. Even writing about things that actually happen can be incredibly freeing! Take this blog for example. I tell you about all of the wonderful/exciting adventures Ty and I partake in. If I don't like something that happens, I can omit it, I can change it, or I can shape it in a way with  my words that makes it not so horrible. When I'm writing this blog, the world is mine, and the story is up to me. You can say I have a "Secret Life of Walter Mitty" syndrome, but I say that I am in control, and in the moment, with my fingers pressing surely against the keyboard, I am free.