Today I had the opportunity to lead a writing workshop for a handful of writers who gathered at Barnes and Noble under the premise of becoming better writers. I had the chance to work with one of my best friends in the world as a co-leader of this session. We spent the time we had together talking about character development and the things that really power stories forward. For me it all boils down to what a character loves and what they fear. What they love ties into what they want and what they need. What they fear tends to serve as an opportunity to force them to face those fears in order to move forward.
I did all of this while bearing the memory of my worst nightmare in ages. That nightmare came to me last night as an end of the world scenario. There was an asteroid poised to end life on earth and perhaps shatter the planet itself into unrecognizable pieces. Early in the dream I watched the asteroid’s precursor rocks shatter the moon, casting fragments down upon the earth. I remember, later in the dream, looking up and seeing the moon back in its rightful place but moving unusually fast through the suddenly calm evening sky. It was not the moon but the enormity of the earth-killer asteroid that filled the sky, warning me that the end was so very close.
I am scared of a number of things, all of which are outside of my control. Ghosts scare me, for I do not often know what they want. Death scares me, for I do not know what it means for my awareness other than the suspicion that it is the cessation of my awareness; an end state as though I were a computer suddenly unplugged. Worse than these two is the fear of a cataclysm that would end not only me but those who I love. I faced that fear in the dream and found that it lingered long after I woke.
In a story I would face down this fear and defeat it or perhaps come to terms. In life I can but hope that the feeling fades as do my occasional terrors and stark awareness of my mortality and impending end. This terror, that all that I have made in this world shall be swallowed and made to bear the pain of the end is yet another example of what I cannot control.
Perhaps that is what I truly fear the most.