30 Days - Day 20

I put this picture here because I love it.

This daily writing commitment is good discipline.

Some days I can't find the words for here, or feel the words are too depressing.

I was pondering on what holds us together. Us. Meaning us average humans. One of those precious sayings hangs in the hallway inside my head all the time: "Never compare my insides with your outsides" and that is so true. At my age I know what your outsides can hide. As mine do when I'm superficially with you. Barely held together on some days while hanging out the happy shingle for others to see.

I just finished reading "Lila" by Marilynne Robinson. And as good books do it got me thinking: mainly of my major character in my last novel. And I'd never addressed her loneliness, often unidentified in people until its removal. Excellent writing can do that: it can get me reflecting on other times, other circumstances, and on my fictional characters. In this case her vacuum. A vacuum that can exist even when surrounded by those who love us. The vacuum which we all try to fill even when we can't name that vacuum.

Am I making any sense? A good editor has read this novel and couldn't connect with my protagonist and couldn't tell me why, only that there was something missing. And now I know what it is, I think. I'm never finished with my characters, they are as real to me as if they walk beside me.

It's May 3rd and the fire is going and I'm still in my PJs and that feels decadent enough for this old lady right now.