I try to write something interesting. Something that will appeal to others and take them on a whirlwind adventure, yet I still remain unsuccessful. I imagine a world with exciting characters who embark on daring journeys only to cease midway because I cannot finish their end. It is like I stop existing merely because my characters come to a conflict. They reach a conflict in the story and we cannot push our way through it. As if something might judge their choice, judge the author, and never finish the book, although the book still remains unfinished and off the shelves.
I fear completing a book I am proud of only for it to be rejected by editor after editor, publisher after publisher. Or, the fear overwhelms me of printing a book only for it to remain on the shops' shelves never to be read by an innocent teen or adult. For one to read the cover and place it back on the shelf. For one to read the book and for no impact to be had. Life for the individual has been made no better or worse by letting the book come into existence. No thought having been provoked or an idea challenged. This is what I fear and it ceases my writing.
The fear causes boring characters and insignificant plot twists or rather none at all. It causes me to imagine a far away land, but not be able to put it into words in order for it to come close to home. Ideas are stunted under the weight of the world's judgment and yet I write to await the world that lies before me. I write to escape the land I know now to a land which seems sweeter and brighter. Yet even the utopias of stories must have conflict. The rise and fall of people and their beliefs must exist in a good plot. Right versus wrong. Good versus evil. It all seems the same in comparison. Happy endings are a must, even sad ones must be happy. Never does bad win. To have an evil ending is considered a bad one. To let love lose may be considered a crime in a novel. Yet people face conflict in reality and contrary to popular belief, good does not always win.
Heart breaks and heart-failures occur every day. Where do we go to deal with it? No, not to books, but rather to others who sympathize and put their hand on our shoulder saying, "You will get through this," though rarely believing they will get through their own life's circumstances. Crime happens daily, yet we want the good to win in books. Divorces are finalized every day, yet love must win. Death comes daily, yet life is to go on. Cancer and chronic diseases persist, yet we desire healing to emerge without some supernatural being we cannot see intervening. We live in a world of hurt and pain yet we ask to escape into a book full of conflict so we can relate only for the book to lie, telling us that good, life, and love always win. Too often we ignore the Higher Power we rely on in life, yet we want our books, news, government, and schools to be free of such mystery. Why do we not seek to uncover these mysteries? Why do we believe good, life, and love naturally win when without a god in our lives, chaos remains? Why do we insist on our lives being free from God when we inwardly hunger for good, life, and love to win as they must in books and movies?
We call the spiritual people too religious or a freak or just naive, yet we expect good to win in our world. What kind of God does this truly depict?
I do not believe people really know what they want, or rather what their inner being wants. Why do we insist upon good winning out over any conflict? Does it truly exist in our reality or do we only believe it must appear in our books? Do we really desire a Utopian world where good, life, and love win over every conflict, crime, and marriage? Do we really believe we can create this for ourselves? Or do all of us secretly believe that someone higher than ourselves helps to restore good, yet cannot admit it because of the judgment of the world around us? Yet the writer in me wonders.
Do the words of a daring adventure that wins with good and with a little romance suffice our need for good to exist? For love to win over the heart breaks we face. For one to be able to dream of being a part of an out-of-reach reality where good always wins? Is this what we expect of our authors? For the authors to create a world in which we cannot life in because we insist upon ignoring that we do trust in God. That He will cause good, life, love, and hope to win over everything we deal with on a daily basis?
So I do fear that the readers have lost touch with the world they live in at this moment. Where one can only find peace and happiness in made up lands and happy endings. Where the bad guy is always punished justly and the love story continues after conflict pursues its end. And where religion is ignored in fear of admitting that we may not be a self-sufficient people. A book where every loop of an author's pen creates another twist or another turn that may lead to God being the only way out of the mess of conflict we live in today.
Do we desire for good to win, because if so, we may need supernatural help that we cannot see...The kind that doesn't take the form of a ghost, witch, vampire, etc. We may need a God who is all-powerful, all-knowing, and most of all, all-loving. But, do we want to admit it?
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