Writing is the Happy Place in My Brain

By Angela Knight

I used to dream of being an author, going on book tours, and signing books for admiring crowds. Then I realized that I couldn’t torture my characters; it wasn’t in my peaceful, let’s-all-just-get-along nature. I’d forgotten about internal conflict; of course, I could write fictional stories with internal conflicts. 

I’ve now written 16 first draft novels and published four under a pseudonym. My autograph requests are family and friends, which is just fine. My dreams of admiring crowds ignored my glossophobia and ochlophobia, but I am a legit professional author: Amazon directly deposits money in my account from my book sales. 

I still hope to write a bestselling book someday, either literary fiction or fabulous magical realism. Until then, I’ll practice in my mostly realistic fiction drafts with occasional paranormal elements just for fun. They’re chic-lit, a genre of escapism. If someone called my books “a good beach read,” I’d consider that high praise.

My mind goes a million miles an hour. There are too many tabs open in the browser of my brain. When I have a novel idea, it focuses on a few of those tabs: character development, setting ideas, plot ideas. Those three tabs move to the left, the ones I click most often, and they push the tabs of worry further down the row. 

Writing matters because it’s the happy place in my brain, a distraction from pandemics, politics, and other problems of the world. In times like these, don’t we all need more options for healthy escape from reality? 

Noveling is mine.