I've always dreamt of being a writer. A solitary voice telling a story. I love other people and am in love with what other people can do – especially if they are better than me at it (which is most often the case). But I also love the purity of a story told by one voice. Salman Rushdie once said that writing is the most powerful because there is one man or a woman in his or her room, writing - and nothing in between this person and the world – and this is becoming more and more so the case as self-publishing becomes a better option by the day.
I don't care so much for having anything to say. I just want to do justice to the people that live in my imagination. I want to allow the characters and the worlds to have a chance at life. The main theme of my stories have been and may always been the drive for humans to live - to stay alive. The strongest impulse in us that refuses to die. In the same way, I feel the characters that have come to me wanting to become alive and stay alive, and remain alive. As a creator and what a privilege it is to be one, formed in the image of the Creator, I feel a sense of responsibility to the worlds and the people – that, yes, are not real – but are not real yet because I haven't breathed life into them yet.
I am not playing God, and I dare not play God. But I am fulfilling his responsibility of being in his image, of being a faithful servant of this garden that I inherited – the garden of talents, dreams and stories.
It is when I am in this state that I feel truly alive. A solitary voice delving deep into the reaches of Imagination and resurfacing to gather the stones into a pile and design it so that others can see and marvel at it too.
The work I do is not for self-aggrandising. I couldn't think of a more humiliating profession than story telling when it comes to self-promotion. The work I do is holding a mirror up. The work I do is reminding humans of who they are and why they are, and that life is worth fighting for, and maybe even giving up everything in exchange for.