Why Do I Write - by Réal Laplaine – Author of INTRUSION: A KEENO ACTION NOVEL

                                                          Why Do I Write

                   by Réal Laplaine – Author of INTRUSION: A KEENO ACTION NOVEL

                      Being a recently published author, of little known repute, so far, I thought I would put the record straight on why I write. Maybe it makes no difference whatsoever to readers in general, but I think it makes a difference to those potential readers to whom I am speaking, and who are interested in the subjects of my books.

                      I get asked repeatedly, what do you write about and my usual answer is “fiction” – but that is not really the truth. It’s “fiction” because in the publishing world, if it isn’t biographical, or a documentary, it’s fictional – but I don’t see it that way, not entirely.

                      I’m no more special than anyone else on this earth, and like everyone else, after living a few decades, experiencing a few things, one gets grip on which star, and on which road one is heading towards. My star is called “change”. I want to change the world for the better.

                      I don’t write to be famous, or to be rich. I write because I have something to say.

                      My life has been interesting, so far. When I was five years old I experienced some many months of physical abuse (regular beatings) and other abusive treatment.  It was, to put it mildly,  a rather demoralizing and degrading time in my life, none the less of which included having my arm snapped when I tried to prevent a man five times my size, from sexually molesting my four-year old sister. What did I learn from that? Well, it didn’t traumatize me but it did piss me off, and I learned a few lessons about survival at a young age when most kids were still playing with their toys. I learned that the world had good people and bad ones, but oddly, I didn’t focus on the bad ones just because I had encountered one rotten apple. I learned a more valuable experience from that period –to believe in myself, to believe in my goals, and to not let others define who or what I was.

                      I lived many adventures after that childhood period, and I went on to work for an organization for many years which was not, in all fairness, entirely true to its own ideals, but I never gave up hope and I did my best to stay true to WHY I came on board with them. During my travels around the globe, I have pulled unconscious and bloody people from a burning car, stopped men from beating women in Los Angeles, and had a gun aimed and cocked at my head. I’ve fought fires, some with flames racing at me almost faster than I could move away. I’ve been bullied, I’ve been abused, I’ve been physically attacked and I have undergone character assassination of the worst kind, by people whom I had considered to be lifelong  friends – and yet, to this day, I maintain the one thing that is true to me. I believe that it is my job to inject hope, in a world which all too easily can drain people of their dreams. I believe that we can never get enough inspiration.

                      When I was a young boy, watching television and seeing images of small children, like me, in some third-world country, with rags on their backs and a begging bowl, and yet in their eyes was spark and hope, I knew then that the only thing that would fulfill me in my life, was to use my own experiences, my own passions, my own knowledge, to inspire more hope.

                      I have also had the honor of meeting people who were caring, inspiring and who lived up to the ideals of which they spoke or believed – and so left indelible marks on me, far deeper than those in the negative bracket.

                      All my books, so far, three of which are now published, have that element built into them. I don’t just write about violence or action or romance or intrigue. My grammar isn’t always perfect but I KNOW, those who have read the stories, have had a positive experience. The weave, the glue that holds my stories together, I think, is my very reason for writing. Can that guy win? Can that gal change her life? Can the good guys really beat the criminals, or is our world inherently infected with crime? Is there more to life when all seems bleak? That weave is also based on true-life experiences. Until you’ve had a gun aimed at your forehead, or had men surround you on a dark-street corner, or had to put your life on the line to save others from dying, you cannot conceive of what goes through your mind at that instant. The senses, the thoughts, the conflicted -impulses, the adrenaline-pumping-fear compelling you to run, to save your life,  these very things which my characters experience, are to some degree, based on what I have seen and experienced. It’s not all fiction, not by any measure.

                      I love telling a good story. I love to hear from people who tell me that they enjoyed my books – it is encouraging, of course. But I truly hope that it leaves some impression on them, at least a tiny ray of hope or inspiration, which they pass along to someone else, so that step by step, we can build a better world, one which matches our dreams, one which challenges oppression, where peace, humanity and the spiritual essence of people dominates, and where anyone can dream a dream, and live it – providing of course that their dreams don’t suppress those of others.

-       Réal Laplaine – Author of Intrusion: A Keeno Action Novel, The Buffalo Kid and Finding Agnetha

-        www.reallaplaine.com