Author's Note: Plot ideas are welcome. R&R please! (:
Disclaimer: I do not own A Knight's Tale, its story and its characters.
People sometimes ask me, "Why do you write a journal?"
I'm betting that the exercise is too tedious for their liking, and though I've had my share of unfair judgment, I don't think it's right to do it to others. Some call me a nerd, a teacher's pet… frankly, someone who doesn't fit in with the normal and, especially, the popular crowd. Every day I go to school, I can only see the people who have it better than I do- the jocks, who get whoever girl they want, the pretty girls, who are as popular as can be, and those kids who can make people laugh without even trying. I had never had that kind of effect on people, the kind that would make them stop what they're doing and stare, and admire the talents God has bestowed upon me.
I'm not particularly smart, save for those few moments when I get bursts of intelligence. I'm crap at sports, can barely run for a minute before I need to bend over and gasp for breath. I have no charisma, no friends to speak of, since the people I talk to frequently already have friends of their own. Am I a loner? Most likely. And even with having a clique to belong to, loners don't actually hang out with other loners. So what do I say to people when they ask me that question? "Why do you write?"
I'm not pathetic enough to say that it's because I can't find anyone to talk to during lunch break, or that it's my way of seeming as if I'm too busy to have a companion. Nor do I say that it gives me an indescribable feeling of power that usually escaped me in everyday situations. I can't find that strength from the pit of my stomach that would push me to confess that I think I'm a depressive, that there would come a point in time that I would just kill myself, and I wanted to take track of the grim thoughts that run day in and day out in my head. I don't tell them it's because I wanted people to ask me why I handwrite dozens of single-spaced pages a day.
You know that feeling, when you write something and you earn the ability to reread it whenever you want it to, that it makes it more real? Since it acts like a memory that you can access? Well, that's what writing feels like to me, though it also helps keep me sane. There are things I've seen, things I've been through, that make me wonder if they happened at all, and I read my journal and go, "Oh, so it really did." I did meet William Thatcher. I did see knights joust firsthand. I did, somehow, fuck up and pissed off a witch that sent me spiraling into the world Brian Helgeland created. But I don't say that, either. I have never, ever said that. Instead, I shrug, and just keep on writing.
"I don't know."