The Big Picture

December is my month off from writing. With all the whirling, swirling activity of holidays and family and company and chocolate overdose, I can’t concentrate on stories. Without fail, by the end of the month, I wonder why I am driven to write in the first place. Pent up angst surfaces its stubborn head and tells me I am a fraud. The thread of truth in my work  in progress eludes me. The magic element that can turn an ordinary person’s story to something worth savoring begins to look more like ashes than pixie dust.

“Sit Down,” I tell myself. “Write something. Anything.” But I look for other things to occupy my hands and my mind. Just look at those cobwebs. And the floors? Disgraceful.

“Just do it. You’ll feel better,” I say again. But what do I know?

I know that fiction has the ability to make you care. Afghanistan seems too distant and unreal? Read A Thousand Splendid Suns and suffer along with Laila. Not sure how you feel about the tension between Palestinians and Israelis? Walk with Danny and Rev or any number of Chaim Potok’s other memorable characters and they’ll explain it to you. People like Scout Finch and Elizabeth Bennett and Anne Shirley and Sherlock Holmes have changed our world. I can’t imagine life without them.

It’s a good time to back up, to look less at the problems of plot and character development and more at the reason for writing. It’s time to remember that, succeed or fail as a writer, there are characters living inside me that can make the world a better place if they’re only given a chance to live.

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