"I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that." ~Martin Luther King Jr
Conflict...That is what this weeks lesson at f2k is going to touch on. As many people are having the time of their life in f2k, some learning new tricks of the trade, some are repeating this session because they love the rebirth of their writing muse, while some are puzzled by what this lesson means to their writing.
They’re usually the newbie writers who have put their writing dream on hold and have finally crawled out of the woodwork and decided to take writing on, not as a hobby, but as a possible career. The thing with that is, they walk in and think they’ll make hundreds of thousands of dollars for writing one short story or a novel.
I told the young girl that this is an art, not something you just jump into and begin making money. This is a craft that takes years of learning and honing for it ever to come to the fullness that you expect. In other words it is an internal conflict of sorts. The bug bites you, it stings for a little bit and without nurturing the wound it has placed on your heart, it will never become the healing place that writing can be.
Conflict in writing...it can breathe life into a so-so piece of work, it can cause a swell of the tidal waves coming ashore in the motion of your words. You can either have a knock-down-dragged-out fighting scene, or you can choose to have your protagonist, main character, fight the war within her/himself.
Have you ever seen conflict in reality and a need to convey it in writing? Well this has been one of those weeks where conflict has been a part of the world around me. Not only with the Osama bin Laden conflict that festered for 10 years, ate away at peoples pain and culminated in a shoot out where he is now deceased and people are relieved. It was like, up up up goes the conflict and CRASH, down comes the resolution. But also I watch as stress levels in my home rise to a heightened point, eating away at the very core, only to come crashing down in a harsh, field on confrontational conflict.
I’m always so upbeat about every tiny thing, and sometimes I allow, or feel I’m allowed a moment of anger even if it is brief, it just has to be released so I can find a resolution to it all. I’m not the only one in this household, and I’m certainly not the only one stressed out to the point of the stretching of the Bungee cord! *SNAP* It either breaks or you bounce back. That would be the resolution. Bouncing back into shape and allowing conflict whether in writing or life, to have its place, but to be resolved, and finding the pot-o-gold at the end of the rainbow.
I’m alone out here, I miss my family, I miss so much but I will not dwell on the have-nots. I will soar as an eagle and carry with me my love of writing and all the things I have in my life. My friends are a bonus to have as support, and I thank them dearly!
Don’t let conflict, ruin a story, allow it to carry your work to the next phase. Resolution!
