In some ways I regret not finishing my second book earlier. In other ways I am a bit relieved. The downside of writing about the past from the future is making sure that the real present doesn’t contradict. Even if it is fiction. Not easily done these days.
I know why I didn’t finish the second book and I know why I stopped writing. For whatever reason this is when that part of my life finished, for the most part, and this part of my life resumed. From it I came away with a better understanding of just how easy it is for a collective to stack the deck against an individual. And to what lengths collectively they are willing to go, either by choice, or by design.
I do think in many ways that the next few weeks or months will be very informative, if not, fundamental to my books. To my life. And to our country. The question at this point is merely to what degree. I had very comfortably placed certain “possibilities” in the fiction box. Current events will largely determine which stay purely fiction and which ones are not.
The danger with an adjustment in truths is that eventually the question becomes if this was a lie, what else is a lie. If this is true, what else is true. It is an important process, but not entirely a clear process. As writers. In a way we write the truth. Our truth. A truth. The real truth that we could never say out loud. Not directly. It is woven into the words as themes, and concepts, and ideas. It is a process. It conveys a process. Through this process we learn. About ourselves and others. How many other works contain the breadcrumbs of truth. Of hidden secrets.
My books started with an idea that secrets are not meant to be hidden forever. That eventually they will be uncovered. Discovered. That things we view as normal or acceptable, are only normal and acceptable within the context that has been created. Change the context (to the future) and you change how things are viewed.
Sara
I Only Write When. 