Updates!

Well, as promised to my friends and my readership! I've been busy! Arg!  I have kept my promise of working on my novel.  Not as much as I would like, but, Each week I am going to force myself to set aside time to write several pages. That's the only way it's going to get done. 

So, that brings me to some random musings for the day.  In the head of an author, what motivates one to write?  Is it to gain a following (fame)? Fortune?  Nah.  Those are lofty and ambitious goals. And for some, sure, and would I be said if something I wrote made it to the NY Times Best Seller list?  In a way yes, and in a way no.  Why would I be sad you ask? Well, commercialized anything means corrupting the original idea / intent. Many times authors are required to edit and change their material to fit editor's demands for the publisher. That means there is room for the idea and intents to get lost. Might it be a better story, sure, but, that brings us to the true motivation of author's writing and musings.

The term "The pen is more powerful than the sword." is because ideas are dangerous and powerful. Writing one's ideas and thoughts down can be dangerous because there are others that might adopt those ideas and thoughts.  I do not write to incite a revelution, nor do I write to change anyone's views on religion, politics, or anything else for that matter. I just write to get people thinking. 

My other motivation is not about others, but more about me.  I know, a little selfish there! Ha!  For example, the novel I'm working on, I started early in my marriage 9 - 10 years ago. The main antagonist I created is a demonized woman. Hmmmm. Any parallels there?  10 years later, I ended my marriage and now write from a place of healing. So, the novel is about finding healing and good in the world after great evils have ravaged the earth.  How do we recover as a race? How do we find hope amidst destruction?  Within the human condition is a lot of suffering!  How does the human race go forward amidst that suffering and find a place of peace, hope, and maybe even Joy in life?

This is what my novel is about and where I'm going with it.  Although, it has a lot of religious context around it. I write the novel around human suffering and a few attempts by characters to overcome that suffering, to overcome differences, to overcome, prejudices, and attempt to prevail over the greatest evils the universe has ever seen.

It is maybe more epic of an idea than what I can give it full justice.  However, I plan it to be the first of a series. Hopefully just a trilogy at most.  I have ideas on what the second novel would be about, and that will take more of a science fiction approach to the whole religion equation. 

But first, this novel. So, back to the original question why write at all.  My goal, is to express the innermost part of being human.  To express the human condition in words. That's all. The good, the bad, the in between.  It's something that many people can relate to, it's meaningful and can be interpretted how people want to interpret it for themselves.  I write poetry, short stories, and novels all for the same reason. To quite simply in brutal honesty express the Human condition. 

We all, by nature, have good and bad times.  We share in that a bond, being human.  Most people and especially guys wouldn't admit to this depth of feeling, emotion, or humanity, I am not most guys.  I found expressing myself in words is really something that comes natural to me.  I have no delusions of grandeur or fame.  I don't expect to stand alongside Edgar Allen Poe anytime soon.  At the same time, expressing the human condition is something we all can understand, relate to, and with any luck, learn from. :)

That my friends is why I write at all.