“Good News For All People” – Universal Themes in Fiction

Hail there, everyone! What with Christmas vacation being fully taken advantage of, a lot of time is being spent with family this is gonna be a very simple blog.

In the Christmas story told by the Gospel of Luke gives us the record of the Angel speaking to the shepherds.

⁹ And lo, the Angel of the Lord ^[a]came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone about them, and they were sore afraid. ¹⁰ Then the Angel said unto them, Be not afraid: for behold, I bring you glad tidings of great joy, that shall be to all the people, ¹¹ That is, that unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.

Luke 2:9-11 1599 Geneva Bible (GNV)

The Good News was not just meant for the one province of Judea, or even the Roman Empire only. The coming of the Messiah was for every man, woman and child. It was a message for traveling magi, kings and shepherds alike. C.S. Lewis and I think alike that even in the most far flung legends and beliefs of foreign lands, there were fine dreams of what the birth of Jesus would finally bring. The Good News was for all people. One way or another, it was finally the answer to the questions to existence we were waiting for.

See, I believe Truths have a common root because we were all created as humans. Fables and faerie tales, in the true tradition of Lewis and Tolkien and even the best of Star Wars or superhero stories, we can only do so much with a story which is only meant for a certain kind of people for a certain time. If we try to make our stories about something temporal in this world, the story gets planted there and it will stagnate.

Rooting our stories in eternal simple truths that are always going to be relevant and can be understood by anyone, anywhere. Do we really think that a certain time or situation we are seeing today is so unique so that the basic principles that underpin humanity can’t answer it once we peel back the outer veneer of names, trends and tech? I believe this is why faerie tales will always be with us. The simple truths will always be with us. Let’s make these things the foundation of our story because it makes them everlasting. Oh sure the trappings and settings will be different and that’s why I think we should be creative and make them up ourselves; point to the truths that lie deep down rather than trying to constantly point to the newspaper headlines.

As we’re getting close to the new year, let’s dedicate to making our stories last for any year.

Until next time, Godspeed and Peace be with ya!

Writing in the Trenches – Write Even When You’re Uncomfortable and Busy

There’s an old saying, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” It’s an saying that makes a good reminder that life’s a balance. Work hard and play hard. Ecclesiastes has always been one of my favorite books in the Old Testament because of how frank it is. From it came the saying that there is a time for everything in this life. Both peace and war, celebration and mourning, on and on. And now we can move on to what it actually has to do with writing. And it all has to do with that one big word that we crave and strive to create so much. INSPIRATION. That all-important grand adrenaline rush of understanding, insight and motivation that launches us forward at lightspeed with all the confidence in the world. And then the bitter truth is that inspiration is an unstable, unreliable fuel source that utterly collapses whenever anything distracts, disappoints or distresses us. Like it or not, we often wait for inspiration to happen only for it to be blown to bits when something unexpected happens. Because of this we often feel that we shouldn’t even try to write “until we can find time,” meaning a perfect time when nothing is going on or going wrong.

I want to deliver a message that I think can free a lot of us. That sweet spot of time is rare, if it ever comes at all. Like C.S. Lewis says, we can’t depend on any feeling to last forever. Feelings change in an instant. Inspiration isn’t food that we need to survive. Commitment even when spirits are low and writing seems more a worst enemy is what we writers have to survive on. Keeping our promises, putting in the effort. And no this isn’t about gritting our teeth and committing to being miserable. I’m actually talking about committing to doing what will help our spirits survive the assault of tedium the world tries to play against us. If we don’t make the push toward awe, wonder and inspiration, the odds of it coming by chance are slim.

Funnily enough it was a bit of insight into Lewis and Tolkien’s lives that inspired this blog. Both of them served in WWI and their experiences shaped their whole lives afterward. Battles in WWI were fought and lived in trenches as bullets, artillery, shrapnel and clouds of smoke and poison gas passed overhead. The soldier’s home was in pillboxes and dirt walls. And yet even there he still found soldiers like Tolkien who wrote and used their creativity. Artists, musicians, philosophers, novelists, dancers. They refused to let their souls die no matter what life threw at them. Some of them, like Tolkien, made it back stronger on the inside, wiser in the years to come. In reality it was what they had to do to ensure their survival. Instincts were not enough. Then if that wasn’t bad enough, WWII rolled around and Lewis and Tolkien had the challenge of trying to maintain civilization and learning on the homefront in an time when the city might be bombed at any moment.

Out of Lewis’ experiences came a speech and essay about Learning in War–Time. In it he describes the struggles of the scholar in war-time and it’s very easy to see it’s the same for the artist who had to deal with difficulties in life even as they try to create (storytellers definitely included).

“This is the tendency to think and feel about the war when we had intended to think about our work. The best defense is a recognition that in this, as in everything else, the war hasn’t raised up any new enemies but only aggravated the old ones. There are always rivals to our work. We are always falling in love or quarrelling, looking for jobs or fearing to lose them, getting ill and recovering, following public affairs. If we let ourselves, we shall ALWAYS be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we really ‘get down to our work.’ The only people who achieve such are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it when the conditions are still unfavorable.”

– from “Learning in War-Time” in The Weight of Glory

In the same way, we can’t wait around for inspiration. And if we put all our writing and creativity on hold until all is set right in our world, we will always find a reason not to. Ironically because we sense resistance, it creates the temptation to deny ourselves the one thing that might give us relief from it. If we want it bad enough we have to fight for it, look for it, dig for it if we have to, because it won’t come to us on its own. Sometimes like Nehemiah the only way we’re going to build that wall is with a trowel in one hand and a sword in the other. Whatever life throws at you, someone has to write that book come hell or high water.

Write, even in the trenches. Write even when times get hard. Write even when there are inconvenient things going on. Write because you will find your life getting better, even during the hard times. It’s what we do, we were built for it, and it’s what people need. If we are to get inspiration, we aren’t going to waste our time waiting for it to come to us. We are going to write every day until it comes.

Until next time, Godspeed and Peace be with ya!