Yes, I play pretend. Yes, I am 23. Yes, I am single.

     Sometimes I find a secluded place and make up scenes by acting them out. Sometimes means nearly everyday. Turns out this is a common tactic among writers, but I didn't know that until last year. I always thought I was just the only 22-year-old who still fully invested in a great game of make-believe, so this is the first time I've admitted it publicly. Hey, it's not lame if it's a marketable skill!
     This is where all of my awesome ideas have come from. This is where and how my book was born. This is the method to my madness. This is also why you might hear whispering if you place your ear to my bedroom door. There's no one in there, I'm just a weirdo. 
Here are a few of the scenes I have written via role play:

• You're chased through the jungle, beaten, and left for dead.
• Your friend who's seen the future tells you have to sacrifice yourself to save the lives of hundreds of thousands. Includes a touching speech about how you can't because your children need their mother. It's so sad. 
• Your ex shows up at a party and says the one thing no one should ever say to you. You tell him that he deserves to be slapped, but that will only make you look dramatic, so instead, you calmly extort all of his deep dark fears that you know about because he is your ex. You win, he gets therapy.  
• You find out you're pregnant and you're happy. 
• You find out you're pregnant and you're not happy.
• You wake up from a coma. Lots of things ensue.
• Rejecting a proposal. 
• Killing your kidnapper with whatever objects happen to be in the house. 
• Surviving an earthquake. 
• Accepting the responsibilities of caring for the children you've just inherited. 
• Telling people you can do it, even though you're a woman. 
• Telling people you can do it, even though you're crippled. 
• Telling people you can do it, even though you're blind. 
• Storming into your reporter friend's office and screaming at him that you were his only ally!
• Shooting the leg of the man you're interrogating to show him that you're not screwing around. 
• Sassily standing up to the hard-boiled Commander in the war zone you're reporting on.
• Screaming at God. 

What was the last scene I wrote this way? 
     Riding on the gurney to keep pressure on a guy's wound so he won't bleed out and convincing him to hold on just a little bit longer. I cried. 
     It's so sad, because it didn't start out that way. They're just friends. He is young and southern and she is trying to make jokes about everything when he says, in his southern drawl, "Do you think a girl like you would ever have taken a guy like me?"
     "Well, I am currently on top of you, so take from that what you will."
     "I want you to know...you are the smartest girl I ever met." 
     "It's the accent," she said casually, "Turns out the 'regionally non-specific' accent is specific to the region of north-west Washington." 
     "You can be serious, it's ok." His hand gave her foot a weak pat. 
     He was comforting her. She was watching red life seep up from his abdomen and through her fingers and he was comforting her. 
     "No," she whispered, "I really can't." 

Are you crying yet?