Sunday, May 8, 2011

Life's betrayals

I reposted via twitter the post on betrayal and writing. I'm feeling a lot like that now. I've come around to wondering a bit more. What if your body betrays you? My daughter's body is betraying her. Confilicting problems that keep them from being able to fix one or the other. Now? Her heart is having to work very hard, her leg is huge, and her fever spiked. We've come down to low-grade fever, but what the hell?

So back into the ICU we move. Thankfully, I finished the story I've been working on and had that positive boost today. So much is going on and there are things that aren't for public consumption. But more, I've started wondering.

I know I can take all these negative emotions and channel them into my writing and art. I can also do it for strong positive emotions. I did that post about how a writer's voice was silenced out of fear, but what if that voice is silence because they're hiding from themselves and playing at being happy?

What if their voice is silent because they're not being true to themselves and the lie is closing their mind from the artistic side in charge of writing? Should you allow people to live in that false reality. My daughter is young. Her body is compensating for all the radical problems, but what if it quits? It's something I have to face. Despite the specialists and consults and new opinions no one can fix her. The doctors and nurses are worried about her and want to make her better.

They're trying hard, even thinking outside of the box. But what about the extended family? How do you make them face the fact that modern medicine, with all its miracles, doesn't have the answers. Do I let them hide behind their anger and belief that a bigger hospital will help, or do we tell them the truth that nothing can be done and her system is failing and they have no reason for it?

There's some hope that she'll recover. She's young... that's the best thing she has going for her at this point. Is it a betrayal or is it looking at things in the best light to maintain hope?

Does false happiness by necessity cut us off from certain parts of our brain so we can function? From creativity? I don't know.

What I do know is that I hope that I never get so false to myself and how I feel that I can't write. Or write honestly. It would suck to have to write what someone else wanted instead of what's in my heart. I don't mean edits. I mean told to write happy sappy when I wanted to write horror.

Write. Write. Write. Write what you love, what your heart feels. Don't hide behind falseness.

2 comments:

  1. This is absolutely true - my Dad asked me yesterday why I write fantasy. My answer: I just do. That's what comes out. I could try and write literary fiction, but to be honest, I wouldn't know where to start. In writing we find ourselves, usually right there on the page, staring back at us. You can't hide from yourself when you write - the truth about who you are and what you feel slides out whether you want it to or not.

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  2. Yep. What's inside our creativity shouldn't be forced or pushed to meet someone else's idea of what we "should" be. (Again, not talking editors/agents who are helping you bring your book that next step.) Family/friends/significant others who think we "should" be writing happy sappy when our mind needs to unleash something different. Or who say horror/gore sells and you might need to write happy rainbows and light.

    Creativity needs free reign within our minds to fully express what we're capable of to others. Write for Yourself.

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