A Place for Everything

Stories exist to because writers need to write them and readers want to read them. We write them because we want you to read them and you read them because you want us to write them. It's a simple relationship, but it means everything.

Those who have written a story knows how important it is to put everything in order to please the reader, and everyone who enjoys a good story knows how important it is for the writer to create it for them. But that's just life. Everything connects in some way we don't always see.

I say this because the most important thing a story can be is natural. It reflects that idea of everything connecting in a cogent way. And this might seen odd to say when writers of genre fiction write weird fiction, but it's true.

This is because weirdness is natural.

I'm not referring to oddball deviants or bad philosophers who proclaim their disturbed way of life sacred and Average Joes jokes, but that the universe itself is a particularly strange place if you think about it even a tiny bit. It appeared out of nothing with fully formed rules and plans, planets and stars and black holes abound, and even the Earth itself is strange among all that mess! And of all the creatures crawling on the planet, humans are the only ones that can build Gothic cathedrals, submarines, castles, and giant robots. That's weird, and for good reason.

Normality is weird.

One of the aspects of postmodern criticism and art that has disappointed is how it has taken out the weird, and therefore the beauty along the way. There's nothing weird about the grotesque or the profane: that's base and simple. Corpses are common. Ugliness is easy. It's a warped view of the natural taken and glorified to obscene levels. There's no wonder there.

These artists have removed imagination in exchange for what they consider realism, and they wear it as a badge. They want a reaction, and nothing more. "Realism" is rarely ever even real in these works which makes them feel doubly false.

People as a rule want to be taken higher. You can't blame them for that. It's built into them at a deep level. We are made for more.

As it was once put:

When God had filled the earth with life
And blessed it, to increase,
Then cattle dwelt with creeping things,
And lion with lamb, at peace.

He gave them vast, untrodden lands,

With plants to be their food;
Then God saw all that he had made
And found it very good.

Praise God the Father of all life,

His Son and Spirit blest,

By whom creation lives and moves,

In whom it comes to rest.

We want to be happy not because we are deluded, but because we know deep down that there is much to be happy for. This is why stories of good triumphing over evil, or where good is exulted, or where evil is shown for the muck that it is, comprise of just about the entirety of all great literature. It's universal: it goes down beyond our bones to our souls.

This is why there are fewer feelings greater for a writer than when they are given kudos or just criticism for a story by readers, and when they are writing and things fall just into place.

I have said before that I don't fall on either side of the "pantser" and "plotter" divide when it comes to being a writer. I have done both. The reason is because stories are a form of discovery: we're not really writing them but discovering and sharing what we find with you. I can sit down and bang out an outline and have the story go sideways on me because of a random wrinkle I never considered. I can start a story from scratch then need to outline it because something isn't flowing right. Sometimes things go great with both approaches all the way through. Writing is odd sometimes. It just works out that way.

But when everything falls into place and you get a complete piece there is nothing more satisfying to a writer. I wish I could describe it, but the feeling that you have cleaned a window into a higher reality that others can also use is something amazing. I write stories because I want people to connect with them so we can share this feeling together.

That's what they're for. We're all in this together, after all.

I'm writing this on the day that 33 people were murdered (edit: 34) and 36 were injured at Kyoto Animation in Japan. Please spare some of your prayers and best thoughts to those attacked for merely doing their job. The animation industry in Japan is grueling enough, and these people took this job regardless of that knowledge. They merely wanted to create things to make people happy.

I'm not the biggest fan of what anime watchers call "KyoAni" though I don't deny the great work they have done and have enjoyed some of it. I pray the one responsible is given a just punishment for his crimes and the families left behind by the tragedies will recover. Those who died deserve better than being murdered for trying to entertain people. Here's hoping that they are better off now.

Sometimes it is worrying to wonder if our sense of balance in reality has been lost. Those who create art are not gods or high priests, we are just doing what we were made to do. It's just a job. Nothing a writer or artist can do deserves what happened in this situation: art is not a weapon. It is food for the soul. I admit I have less sympathy for artists who attempt to use their talent wrong and cause strife and discord, but that is not what happened here. KyoAni is as tame and unoffensive as it can get. Entertainers won't save your souls. We're just here to make your day a little better and to get by with everyone else.

Because, as I said, we're all in this together. We can dislike modern art and how it is misused, or detest those who make it, but we still have to live with each other. That's why we're here.

Everything connects and leads into other things. Our choices matter a lot, regardless of how you might be told otherwise, and as a writer I can tell you that a single decision can sometimes mean the difference between a sold piece of consumer art or a scrapped idea buried in the bin. So take care that we work together and don't lose sight of what we are, what we can do, and what we are destined for.

Normality is weird, but weird still as a formula. The universe is weird, and it has patterns. Ugliness is base, and exists only to pervert what already exists. That includes those who would hurt those who have no greater goal than trying to make them smile for half an hour out of their day. That is the epitome of a warped perspective and having a disordered mind. Celebrate beauty and chase it with all the love you have, and it will work out somehow. It might not be in a way you expected, but not that's the way it goes.

We can't always see where we're going, but we are going somewhere.

So please spare an extra prayer and pondering a moment over those who lost their lives and consider just what we're here to do, and not do.

The thing about hitting rock bottom is that there's only one way to go from there. Now it's time to look up again.

As an aside, the new cover artist for Heroes Unleashed has been working out well with Silver Empire and Gemini Warrior is very close to release. I will be sure to let you know when it does. And those on my mailing list, be aware that I will start it anew when it does. I unfortunately fell off long before I should have on it. But that's in the past. Now we're in the present, and things are about to get a whole lot more interesting.