Love and Promises

Writing is what’s on my mind today. My post, Nakedness, is listed on the Personal Power Blog Carnival at Pinkblocks.com. Last night I sent out my revised Part One of “Return of the Shadow Lion” to my Dedicated Readers, or DRs as they are known in Critters.org/critique.org lingo. The critiques, or crits, that came back off of last week’s submission of the Prologue and first three chapters of RSL were very helpful and gave me a lot to do and think about during the revision. The “Critters” (another critique.org term) not only made great comments, and asked insightful and pointed questions, they also gave me an unexpected gift.

After I sent out the first section, I sat back and reflected on what I’ve learned so far. That’s when I saw the real theme of the fantasy novel that has consumed so much of my time lately. Love and promises. Oh, I’d known that was in there, but several sub-themes and the necessary obsession with detail that is required for the editing process had distracted me from the primary point.

For all of the ordeals that I put my characters through and how much they suffer for their goals, this one thing became quite clear. Down to the last malakh, good or bad, honorable or scoundrel, the quality of their lives and their legacies is determined by one thing–whether they act out of limited self-interest or for the good of others. Their fates are sealed out of that fundamental choice of whether or not to live out of love. All else, their promises and commitments, and how they choose to fulfill those, flows from the fount of what lies deep within their hearts. And it isn’t always black and white, or obvious, what drives some of them. That’s the suspense and the surprise of it. It’s also a lot of the fun of the writing of it, too.

It is often the ones that suffer the most for their choices, lose their lives for their commitments even, that have the highest quality of life. They are the ones who love well and deeply; they die the same way. Their legacies are all different. They may come to their demise with grace or groveling, end up variously respected, vilified or redeemed, but the one constant is love. Love and promises.

Whatever happens with this book, whether it eventually finds a publisher or languishes on a CD-R in my office closet, matters a lot less to me at the moment than my happiness over having written something with a transcendent message. I do feel some obligation to help it find a larger audience than just me and half dozen critiquers, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the message it contains won’t allow itself be limited by either the vagaries of the publishing industry or the limits of my writing skill. Heck, it isn’t limited to the written page at all. That’s just this one messenger’s particular medium. The message itself flows into, fills, and overflows all of our little boxes, just as it flows into, fills and overflows our lives–if we let it.

Those are my thoughts on this blustery morning in Parks, Arizona. It rained last night and the San Francisco Peaks are sporting a wreath of clouds as I write this. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the first snowfall of the season dusting the higher elevations once the clouds lift. Today, I’ll be immersed in more editing and hammering away at flamencophile.com. I may even get a few boxes packed. Until next time, this Ariel Laurel Strong for the Cloud of Unknowing on WordPress.com. Posted on Sunday, September 23 at 18:59 UTC.