Many people ask me where I get the inspiration to write what I write. “I just think of something and write. That’s it.” They always seem disappointed by that response. And it’s no wonder. I could never tell them the full truth.
I don’t write happy endings. My characters would hate me. If ever they find a bit of peace in their lives, I soon tear it away from their fragile, desperate hands. Either my characters die or wish they had.
Many people ask me where I get the inspiration to write what I write. I’m like the grade school bully. I beat and belittle because I have been beaten and belittled myself. I hope this passage of suffering from writer to character will leave me open for the happiness I see in everyone else. It doesn’t, of course. But I must continue because I know no other way of coping.
“You write? Oh, that’s very good for you.” So they say. Where is my joy? Where is my pleasure? My hope? Writing, though I love her, my dark, sullen mistress, has given me nothing. Joy, pleasure, hope. I couldn’t imagine such things in my own life. Ironically, I wouldn’t want to either. I love my mistress, my only mistress. I love her and all her sorrow.
He Who Wanders 