What if...

A white and a black cat snuggling in a basket and forming a black and white heart

Have you ever wondered what is going on in an author's life as they write their novels? What might prompt a novelist to (for instance) write a science fiction or fantasy tale? Could they be enduring a terrible tragedy or a challenging time in their life, spurring them to seek escape into another world? To imagine a time out of time far away from reality and the pain and suffering it has brought?

Might battles between mythic creatures and godlike humanoids substitute for the battles going on in one's mind? Might an intense love affair between a hero of epic proportions and a princess more pure and lovely than any woman found on earth soothe the hollowed heart? Might a treacherous journey into the bowels of some preternatural planet to discard an evil ring bring peace to a tortured soul?

Might the activation of a dormant magical imagination distract a worried or fearful spirit from thoughts of what they should control but have been conditioned to feel helpless over?

Such genres aren't the only ones an author would feel compelled under daunting circumstances to pen. Even romance novels qualify as a way to flee from life's hardships and disappointments. Creating characters who seek the same things we do and move through manufactured plots to ultimately gain their goal -- the love of another who makes their life complete -- could help a writer find closure when their own goal refuses to come to fruition.

Life is a funny conundrum. It doesn't always -- no, it seldom if at all -- goes exactly as we'd like. The paths we each take twist and turn in frustratingly circuitous ways, if only because we share our space and time with others also on life paths that intersect and influence our own, for good or ill. We can't possibly know what goes on in their minds (much less our own) nor control any of it (much less our own).

However, we can manipulate fictional characters and motivate them through twists and turns not unlike our own towards the fulfillment of what we ourselves hold as unreachable dreams and desires in the depths of our lonely and desperate beings.

No one writes just to write. In a dark corner of our cluttered and overwhelmed minds hide our highest hopes. Occasionally, one or another pokes its tiny head out and whispers a sweet idea through the sour cacophony that suddenly empowers us. If not to take full command of our own muddled situations, then to guide the course of an imaginary substitution that stands for -- symbolizes -- the potential achievement of a real success.

Here's a thought. What if those romance novels could be a blueprint for us to use, a plan to follow, in reality toward what we deem unrealistic? Why couldn't we emulate the words and actions of our characters, accomplishing the same goal in the here and now of life that they do in their make-believe world? Why couldn't we too reach their love, joy, happiness?

If we thought it, might we as well be able to do it?

What if?