Stories with Purpose

 How my stories develop

Since I was a kid, I have made up little stories in my head as I tried to go to sleep. The stories have always been supernatural in nature for one specific reason. My health sux. 

Let me explain. I've had migraines every day since I was 5 years old. Cluster headaches for 6 months out of the year since I was twelve. I'm in my mid-forties now. I've had CIN3 electrocuted out and endometriosis chopped out twice. They found it pretty much everywhere on my organs and the outer cervix, everywhere except inside the cervix where it's normally found. 

Anyways, that's a lot of years with a lot of pain, and the way my brain can cope is by giving the pain a purpose. In my stories, having some sort of supernatural power is painful, or the pain is from the powers developing, or it's a demon or beast trying to claw its way out. Somehow, it helps me process and accept my own pain and helps me cope.

Once I fall asleep, the ideas manifest into fantastical scenarios. I used to remember all my dreams. They were so vivid. Nowadays, I only remember particular visionistic style dreams. They're often confusing.

That's how I write my stories. I use my own experience, my own dreams, my own pain to describe fighting wounds, power manifestation, massive mood swings, and irrational behaviour. 

I mean I'm nice most of the time, but I get really intense mood swings and I turn into a raging bitch. I usually warn people when that happens or go throw a tantrum somewhere private where I can scream to some heavy metal and throw a couple of chairs across the room. It's never for any reason. It's just a hormone shift. 

Most of my characters have a slither of my personality built into their persona. I'm a little bit Disney half the time, and demon goddess the other half of the time. Every now and then, I'm stable, but I'm usually asleep at that point. 

So the purpose of my stories is to work through my own pain, and in my mind, the purpose of my pain is to be able to accurately describe intense pain in my novels, like some divine reasoning. 

If you're sitting there thinking I'm bat shit crazy. You would be correct, although not institutionally. I'm crazy enough to believe that my pain can help others deal with theirs if only they put themselves in the character's shoes. 

Try it next time. Stories always have a purpose. The writer may not even know what it is. But it's there. There is always a purpose.