Why my writing matters

Monday, 18 February 2013; blog post part two.

1 Corinthians 13:1 - If I speak speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gone or a clanging cymbal.

I ended the previous post with those words, in part to remind myself how important is the theme of my work; I write mostly love stories, often with a message of more than just adoration.  Usually I imbibe the work with some sense of right prevailing, even in the darkest shadows.  I do that because life is often mired in calamity, but at the end of the day, love usually triumphs.

It also works out this way just because.  Ask a writer why they chose their preferred genre(s), and the answer might be because that’s what they enjoy.  Some writers might pick a topic for its marketability, sure that happens.

But that’s not why I write what I do.

Adversity makes for good drama.  But under the sturm und drang, I need a solid base of affection, shared devotion.  Crap happens, and often it’s heartbreaking.  Some don’t recover from life’s slippery slopes.  But not everyone is lost.  Many are, in terrible ways.  For all our technology and advanced civilization, a layer of abject misery remains.  I can’t stay away from the work, pulling out a project yesterday, which was Sunday.  My husband was trying to record an EP by Endless Boogie onto a laptop, having received their new album and a bonus disc in the post on Saturday.  A free download code was included with the album, but the extra disc is only on vinyl, so he attempted to add that to his digital collection.  Meanwhile, I read over tales of woe, also of love.  I could have been vacuuming, doing laundry, mopping the kitchen.  But that just didn’t appeal.  Instead, after a lengthy break, I needed to get my hands dirty in a writing sort of way.  Creating narratives is what I do.  And I choose to tell tales of hearts broken, then renewed.

I have no choice in the matter, unlike avoiding housework.  (Although eventually I need to pull the hoover from the closet.)  I’m a writer, and that cannot be dimmed.  The message I spread is that love matters, love wins.  After battles and tears, love overcomes.  Maybe that seems daft, maybe it’s naive.  Maybe it’s a lone wailing in the wilderness, but darnit, it’s what I know.  And I am definitely one to write what I know.

So here’s to writing about love, about the resilience of the human spirit.  At times life seems to conspire against what is good and true.  So much tragedy overwhelms.  But to the very end, I will shout this theme, in a variety of ways, until I can’t type another word.  And even then, my stories will remain.