So I was thinking about books. About how one goes about writing a book. Themes, a beginning, middle and an ending. How an idea can expand, twist, and surprise. About plots, inciting incidents, pinch points, and tension. But writing a book can be hard. Easy to think of a story, difficult to translate it into the written word.
A person though, instead of writing a book, could read one, and we do. From the safety of a chair in our own homes, we read. If the book is good, we forget that we are reading a story by some author, and find ourselves immersed in a fictional world, living it in our own minds.
Then I thought, is it possible to live a book? That with books you may get three choices, to write one, to read one, or to live one. A few gifted people, get to do all three. But they are rare.
If a person is living a book, they may find there are coincidences in their daily lives which are hard to rationalize. That their emotions seem to matter more, drive their actions more than normal. That a person is more willing to take risks in the pursuit of happiness. That strangers share stories which move and inspire them, complete strangers.
In living a book, a person may find themselves making major mistakes which destroy significant parts of their lives. They may lose a job, end a relationship, be ostracized by their friends. They may find themselves alone and lonely. Trying to think of what is really important in their lives and how to pursue an ideal that seems like something you’d only read about. I mean we have responsibilities. People depend on us. Society expects us to behave in certain ways. God only knows what would happen to the world if we all went about chasing our dreams.
In living our book, there would have to be a car chase. There would have to be ugly men with nail guns threatening to use them on your children unless you told them the password to the vault containing high grade uranium. You’d have to wonder how you ended up with three, not one, not two, but three beautiful women who have fallen in love with you. And you love each of them for different reasons. How you want to keep all of them in your life, but you know it’s not right. You know that if you do nothing, it will not end well.
You are shy, but keep putting yourself in situations where you have to speak to large groups of talented, intelligent, successful, beautiful people who can spot your every inadequacy. But you step up and speak to them, anyway.
As you live your book, somehow you make some money, the easy way, but still legally. Just enough money to buy a Ferrari. You take the car on a test drive. Not to see how well it handles. You take it to see if there is any truth to the Gold Digger urban fantasy. So at 10 o’clock in the evening you drive by one of the most desirable night clubs in the country. There is a long line of people waiting to get in. You drive slowly and scout out the most beautiful woman in the line and make eye contact. She sees you and smiles. You nod and invite her to go for a spin. Your heart is racing because you’ve never done this before and can’t believe it is happening. She spends the night with you and tells you she’s never met a man like you before. It turns out she has a doctorate in linguistics from Harvard. She tells you that you’re the most intelligent person she’s met, anywhere. It turns out she is married to a billionaire and your wife works for him. Life gets confusing. Your days are full of passionate love making, deep involved conversations, and stress. You wonder if you’ve gone too far, risked too much, and will in the end hurt the people you love the most.
While all this is going on, you find that you have not had the time to work at writing your yet unfinished novel which is so important to you. Nor have you had time to read. Your friends are asking what you thought of the novels they gave to you. Sooner or later they quit giving you novels. You find it hard to explain to people who inquire, why you’re not making progress on your own book. You feel left out of the conversation when you are surrounded by friends all talking about the latest best-selling novel that they’ve read. You do though think about the rash of break ins being reported in your neighborhood. You wonder if you’d have the nerve to actually use the gun you bought yesterday to protect your home and family.