I stepped into my office today with dawn like a knife slash in the east, the light seeped through like pale orange and yellow blood. The crescent moon hung shining silver in the black branches of the tallest tree, as if night and day hung poised, so that it was both at the same time. It was both beautiful and terrible, somehow. I’ve thought that the last few mornings that I’ve seen my office this early. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about why I write this blog. Initially, it was to grow my audience, my brand, to sell more books; but I think most of what I gained in those areas has happened already. The blog probably did most of its original purpose years ago when I was trying to do one daily for a year. So, why do I write this blog? What’s it for? Honestly, I’m no longer certain, but I know one thing that hurts me as a writer in every area, and that is not writing about things. The more secrets I have to keep, the more editing of my life I do, the harder it is to write the blog (which makes a certain sense) but also makes it more difficult to write anything.
My personal life is very separate from my fiction and yet there is some mystical connection that, even after all this time, I don’t understand but I know that it is there, and I know when I do not honor that connection my ability to write suffers. So what haven’t I been saying publicly that’s clogging up the creative pipeline?
Jonathon’s mother, Mary, had cancer this year. She’s gotten a clean bill of health now, but it took chemo to get her there. If you’ve ever seen anyone go through chemo, you know it will take time to heal the effects of the cure. I got her permission to talk about her illness a while back, but it somehow seemed too personal to her to put it here, but if she’s okay with me talking about it, then why has it been something I didn’t want to talk about?
Jonathon buried his Aunt Sweetie just before Thanksgiving, so about two weeks ago. She helped raise him, and when he talks about her it’s more like a second mother than an aunt. She lost her battle with cancer after over twenty years and several remissions. The family is devastated and still reeling as they deal with it. I will miss her, but I don’t have the decades of connection to her that they do. She was not my sister, or my childhood hero, so my loss is seen through the patina of theirs, and my major worry is for those left behind and how they are dealing with it. Aunt Sweetie was ready to go, and her faith gave her peace, so there should be no tears, and yet there are.
Today we will be going to another funeral for a friend’s father, who died suddenly, but his health had been poor for most of the time I’d known the family, so it seems both sudden and inevitable. Our friend is forty, which seems young for burying your father.
The attacks in Paris, the attacks in California, people killed, and for what? To terrify people? To terrify the world? Because that’s what terrorism is, it is literally an attempt to frighten us all, to make us insecure and unsure of our safety. It is a war that kills a few people at a time in the hopes of demoralizing the rest of us. Don’t let them win. Live your lives, be happy, and keep moving, because to do anything else gives them a victory. They haven’t won anything, don’t act as if they have. I’ll admit it’s unnerving, but be hopeful, keep faith that good triumphs in the end. Dark times come, but they do not stay, history teaches us that.
There have been a lot of tragedies this year, both personally and in the larger world. There’s more, there’s always more, but somehow the theme of death and loss seems a thread this year that I can’t shake. But Jonathon’s mother is going to be alright, and that is a miracle of modern medicine. There is good among the bad, wins and not just losses, but sometimes it’s hard to concentrate on the positive when so much negative keeps happening. I know I’m not the only one feeling a bit overwhelmed right now.
Why do I write this blog? Why do I write at all? In part, it’s to reach out to other people and say, “It’s going to be all right.” It’s a way of saying, none of us are alone. We’re in this together. I write fiction to help me make sense of the world and to share a good story, so that as you read my books you can forget the news headlines for a few hours. You can get lost in a good book, where the heroes usually triumph, the villains are punished, and the world is saved. Yes, fiction should make you think, but it should be first and foremost an escape from the mundane world. It should let you slip into a world more fantastic, and more openly magical than our own. That’s why I write my stories and novels. The blog is part explaining how I make that magic happen, and a glimpse into my own reality, so that the magic and the reality of my world brushes up against your own.
I am a storyteller. It is an ancient art. We used to sit in caves, huddled around the fire, listening to noises in the dark, afraid of what they might be, and someone would say, “Let me tell you a story,” and everyone would gather closer to the fire where they felt warm and safe, and they would forget the noises in the dark, listening to adventures. Now, I sit in my office and write words on a screen, that I’ll share with you soon. I’ll finish writing the blog, and continue to work on the latest novel, because you need a good story, and I need to be able to say, “Come, sit by the fire where you’ll be safe and warm, and let me share an adventure with you.”