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Here we are, 2012. My crystal ball is a little murky at the best of times, but I see a better future than apocalyptic annihilation. Although writers love to craft stories about the end of the world, and I’m one of them, I believe 2012 will be a little subtler than a global fiery death.
In every great movie or book there is a profound moment of choice and challenge. It’s the tense moment of ‘will he or won’t he’, and we as readers or movie goers just can’t get enough. It pulls us to the edge of our seat or keeps us flipping pages until well after everyone has gone to bed.
But the important message in the story is usually buried a little deeper. You have to think a little harder. If you’re a person who gives credence to ‘that little voice that tells you things’, and you stop at the yellow light that you normally run through in an intersection, just as someone runs a red light, you have to wonder who that little voice really belongs too. The signs we get in life don’t always come as a Tsunami, but with a whisper. It’s because they’re meant to be heard, and if your world is too noisy you won’t understand the message.
Recently, while writing my new series I’ve been getting plenty of coincidental (some would say creepy) things happening. I try to look at them as that little voice giving me direction or spurring me on. (Yes, I’ve had a physical recently and I’m fine!)
Up until very recently, if someone walked up to me on the street and asked, “What do you think choice really means?” I would have answered, “It means living in a democratic society where I can choose what I want, where I want, and when I want.” It was really a broad and naïve perspective.
That answer has altered radically for me, and I just woke up with it a couple days ago. Before, when I thought of choice the alternate to that was Communism. But if you can wrap your head around this—my answer is now, addiction. Choice is about our free will. That’s no secret to anyone. What takes away choice from us is a rope so tightly cinched around our or someone else’s mind, we can’t even wiggle. Whether it’s physical restriction like a drug addict, and a mind trapped in the circle of need or the addiction to our paradigms, they both have you pinned in a corner.
If you’re a writer you’ve come up against the walls that have stopped your creativity to some degree: An agent who says, “This won’t sell, there’s too much purple prose.” But what if your heart is full of violets? If you strive hard enough, you may find someone to accept it, but you’ll probably throw it in a closet filled with flowers, and begin your chic-lit romance just to be heard.
Look at the self-publishing industry that has blossomed. Why? Because people just can’t veer away from what their heart and their choices are telling them. They don’t care if what they have to say reaches the mass trade paperback market. They just have to say it their way. Thousands of people have the freedom and the choice to blog, and the internet is dripping with them. Here’s a quote to deliberate:
“Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind is written large in his works.” Virginia Woolf.
Keep writing purple prose if your heart tells you to, and fill your closet until it bursts open and spills on the floor, because your words may be the answer to someone’s question or instills a moment of peace that they needed at that time. Whether you’re a well known newspaper critic with dry wit and a whimsical word or a blogger that does it diligently even though no one will ever see it, you’re still sending your voice into the ether, and if it’s meant to be heard, it will be found.
