So here’s my post for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, led by the inimitable Alex Cavanaugh, who has promised us a surprise today.  (I’ll admit it, my curiosity is piqued!)

Up until this moment, I had no idea what I was going to say for this month’s post.  Literally. I just deleted a draft entitled “IWSG: I Don’t Know What to Say.”

Then, I wrote a guest post which caused me to come face to face with myself, and as a result changed my plans for the immediate future. Because I realized – I need to pursue this line of thinking for real, in real life. Sometimes, writing – and reading – can do that to us.

In undergrad, a creative writing professor (who didn’t think much of the fantasy genre) once told me that Fantasy fiction was Freudian,  a way of releasing certain pent-up urges, and of living in an escapist fantasy. In a bad way.

But, really, what’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with fiction that lets us tap into our deepest desires and make them real? Sometimes we need to escape – for a while – to get a fresh perspective.

Have you ever written something and then stared at your own words, realizing what those words had to say about you, what you were thinking at that moment?

That’s what happened to me this past month – and maybe that’s why I need to write, why I’m terrified of writing, and why I cannot seem to stop. Some may say that life imitates art, but I am starting to think that perhaps art reflects on life, digging deep, showing us old truths in new ways and revealing parts of ourselves we didn’t even realize we were hiding, parts of ourselves in desperate need of the light of day.