My blog is officially two years old. I’ve had times when I wrote every day, sometimes I didn’t write for months. Those were the more difficult times during which I had neither time nor energy to muster and sit down to write whatever.
Until I decided that I couldn’t continue without writing another day.
I’m not blogging every day anymore. That is quite a lot, methinks. But I am still writing every day, even if sometimes just a paragraph for the story I am working on. Lately I’ve taken to writing about writing on my blog. Very meta.
But it’s a way of motivating myself and figuring out the things I know and the things I still need to learn about. I’m not the only one here, who struggles, who looks for answers and who wants to become a better writer every day. So I figured sharing my thoughts might help others or they find it useful.
Some people seem to think so and to you I am grateful for sticking with me. Clearly I’m not all that bad. So thank you.
I tend to write from the heart, sometimes from my gut. I’ve had times when I felt the need to rant about whatever. Sometimes I needed to write something uplifting, for me and for others.
I can be poetic and I can be prosaic. I try not to be boring. I try to keep it fresh. I try to be genuine and original. We all have stories to tell that are unique to ourselves, using voices that nobody else has known before.
We tell stories, listen, share. We retell them, because they’ve been forgotten. And maybe there aren’t many original ideas left, but there’s nothing wrong with repeating the story of David and Goliath giving it a different dressing, because stories are timeless, but not always recognized as such.
We live and breathe story. They’re what the universe is made of.
There are other times, however, when reality needs to be acknowledged. We can’t always dream and escape. We also need to bear witness of the world around us and the things that are happening in it. All art should do that. And writers need to find the words to utter the unspeakable.
Lest we forget a plane falling into the ocean with little chance of ever being found and the families finding no closure. Or the ferry that capsized taking over two hundred souls with it, because of the incompetence of a few that were meant to look after these kids. And the two hundred school girls abducted by a terrorist group to be sold into slavery and a government not doing anything about it.
We need to look at the two million Syrian refugees displaced by a civil war and the escalating situation in the Ukraine that is pitting East against West.
We need to see. We need to bear witness to the unbearable and maybe, at some point, put our pens down and get up to do whatever it is we can do. We’ve built a world that is no longer humane, if ever it was.
There are more cat gifs on the internet than information about global warming. People get more outraged of who ships whom on any given TV show than making sure to debunk the myth that vaccines cause autism.
Women get threatened with rape online for having valid opinions and trolls rule the comment sections on almost every website there is.
A few random acts of kindness posted on buzzfeed will not be enough to restore my faith in humanity. Not with atrocities committed in too many places by that same species. Words have power, but we need action as well.
I admit, I don’t know what action to take. But I try to keep informed, changing my opinions with the facts I find. Using words to spread ideas that seep into the hearts of those who read them, and perhaps changing the minds of those, who have actual power to do something.
When I write about writing, I get more responses than on anything else I might write about on my blog. Great, thanks for stopping by. I appreciate you. But there are things that are more important. I will never not write and I will use it as best as I can, but why shouldn’t we also look at the world we live in, write about it and work on creating a better one?
Because the one we have is nowhere near good enough. The potential we have is inspiring. The things we do to each other are atrocious.
Write about it as witnesses; write about how we can do better. Write a dystopian story to show what can happen, if we don’t change. Write a utopian one to show how it could be instead.
Maybe the pen is my weapon. Maybe the words on my screen are somehow able to spread ideas that can spark a change. There’s always hope.
Write so we won’t forget. Give those a voice, who would never otherwise have one.
Write alternative histories, write real histories and don’t omit the troublesome facts. Hold up a mirror to explore the Game of Thrones that is taking place in our very own reality. Call the Emperor without clothes out on his nakedness and tell him that no army in the world will ever change the fact that he is still naked.
Whatever you write, keep in mind that there is a world that needs those stories. Our survival may very well depend on that. Our sanity certainly does.
2clouds 