Why did I write this novel?  Why, of all the stories I could’ve told and characters I could’ve created, why did I tell these stories and create these characters?  Why did I dedicate years of my life to this?

I’ll try to tell you.

It is my belief that all writing is in some way autobiographical.  Writers tell the stories of ourselves and those around us with our characters, motifs, and plotlines.  Even characters designed to be opposite us share some element of us, however minute, and even the most fictionalized world is in some way representative of its creator.  We put our perfections and flaws, our fears and dreams, our likes and dislikes, our beliefs and opinions and, above all, our experiences into our writing.  It’s a way to record and process the world around us and explore our deepest depths.  Some people are just better on the page than they are in person, so they write their world experiences down rather than speaking them aloud.  I know this because I’m one of them.

Maybe writing this story was a way to process everything I’ve experienced, in a different sort of way than Renaissance Reformation Clinic.  Maybe my characters gave me advice and perspective that I wanted to share with the rest of the world.  Maybe I think this novel will help people.  Maybe I think this novel will give credence to the unsung heroes and voices to those whose stories aren’t yet told.  Maybe I wrote this novel to challenge social norms and address as many issues as I can – animal abuse, sex trafficking, mental health, loss, homophobia, racism, antisemitism, and so on – because life doesn’t start and end with one issue.  Maybe I wrote this novel to be controversial because GOD knows I don’t fit in and I wanted to write a book that didn’t fit in either, but maybe my book would be a praised outsider instead of an outcast.  Maybe I wrote this novel to show the world that it’s okay to be different.  Maybe I wrote this novel to show that it’s okay to dislike someone of a minority because that is okay, if you dislike them because of their actions or personality, not because of their minority.  Maybe I wanted to create characters you won’t know how to react to.  Maybe I wrote this to highlight nuances and walk a middle path often ignored.  Maybe I put an element of myself into each of my characters and put them in surreal situations to see how they – and, to an extent, I – would react.  Maybe I created these insane situations because far too many people actually live them and they need to be acknowledged.  Maybe I exaggerated to make a point.  Maybe we don’t want to admit how prominent certain issues are.  Maybe I wanted to write a story nobody had ever seen before and it led me down a strange path.  Maybe that path was the right path.

Maybe I wrote this novel to achieve my dreams.  Maybe I wrote this novel because I think it will bring me the acclaim I’ve always dreamed of.  Maybe I wrote this novel because I hope to live off my life passion and I need a story that will catch people’s attention so I can adequately support myself and my future family.  Maybe this novel is how I plan to make my mark on the world.  Maybe I’m not satisfied with being born, going to school, working, and dying, with all the little difficulties and annoyances inbetween.  Maybe I want to do something outside the banal patterns of life and stand out in a way that doesn’t ostracize me.  Maybe I want to be the next Shakespeare, Twain, or Steinbeck.  Maybe I want to write the next Beowulf, Streetcar Named Desire, or Hunger Games.  Maybe I want to write something that will continue on after I’m gone, a novel that’s on everyone’s To Read list and a name that’s on everyone’s lips, and if Reality Whiplash isn’t that novel, then I’m going to write and write and continue writing until I write a novel that will continue on.  Until I’m the one they’re talking about a hundred years in the future.  Until I’m remembered forever.

Maybe I’m leaving a legacy the only way I know how.  Maybe I’ll do anything to be remembered.  Maybe I believe being remembered is the only kind of afterlife that exists and I want that afterlife and I’m obsessed with my legacy to a Hamiltonian level and, goddammit, I want to be remembered because it would satisfy this yawning pit inside me, be it a craving for an afterlife or my own sense of accomplishment.  Maybe I want to be the person you remember crossing paths with, even if it’s just a thirty-second encounter on the way to the bathroom at a Wal-Mart in the middle of Nowhere, Oklahoma.  Maybe this is what I’ve always wanted.  And maybe being forgotten and living an unmemorable life is my greatest fear.

Or maybe it’s as simple as I came up with an idea for a book and I wrote it and you’re holding the book I wrote.  Who knows.

- Emery Haze

P.S.  I advise you to get prosecuted, banished, and shot for the sake of this book.  It’ll be worth it.