Immersion.

I've got a secret.

It's something I divulged to a mentee today to help him get over his writer's block. After spilling the beans, I realized that it might just be the thing to place here on the Smock. So here I am.

There are situations that I've been in, fully aware that they were/are harmful to my emotional being. Situations that include heartbreak, the unknown, pointless reiteration and sometimes utter chaos. There is this little being, inside of me, that gnaws at me to go through with the turmoil. Why?

Because deep down, that little being and I know that the madness will evolve into a flurry of amazing snowflake-method short stories/poems/journal entries. Yes, I let that damaging flame of a relationship burn out, I've taken the two train into the abyss beyond my stop and I've even sat in the middle of a random back and forth throttling between two strangers. 0_O

Because they make for damn good stories.

Crazy? No, not really. It's the journalist--being that I was one for my first two years of undergrad---inside of me. Just as the war reporter delves directly into the madness to gain a story, I've felt obligated to do the same.

This ploy is not for the faint of heart.

I repeat, this ploy is NOT for the faint of the heart.

The hurt I've gathered along my pathway to life is easily healed by placing it within the safe space of my journal. Knowing this, I've been able to recognize a good story as it plays out, step to the outside of it (while still being actually IN it) and formulate/speculate an ending before it happens. This helps me deem whether its worth going through with to actually write said story. Knowing that I could take this hurt and mold it into perfection on paper allowed me to push myself through many uneasy situations.

In no way is this recommendation. <-----In no way is that statement a deterrence either. If "immersion" is something you feel you can do without losing it, be my guest. If not, think again.

The second step is holding it all in until I reach the crevices of my lined sanctuary. I don't tell a soul. The words seem to bursts from my literary seams when I do this.

POTENT.

INTOXICATING.

Why not tell anyone, yet? Well, it's kind of like the game of telephone. A story diminishes its power a little bit, every time it's relayed. As a writer, its important for me to show my readers the madness firsthand, undiminished by retelling. That way, the reader leaves the page adrenaline rushing, wide eyed, dangling and strung along by the tale their heart feels they've actually just witnessed.

It is our unique experiences that make our individualistic tales so highly addictive. Every time I "immerse" myself into writing a story at my computer, I am entranced until I hit the very last letter of the last word. Writing it this way transfers my trance energy to the reader. Or so I hope.

I'm an addict for good literature and I'd want nothing less. So I try, whenever I open my ink veins and give prose hemoglobin, to give exactly that.........an addiction.

Get High.

-riv-
SMOCKER DEUCE