Force is often used to enforce peace and an A bomb did bring world war 2 to a shuddering halt. The funniest people sometimes commit suicide and good souls often break a zillion hearts. That’s just who were are…sinners and saints in equal measure, our contradictions continually shaping our humanity and if we deny these paradoxes, we deny the existence of the very evolution that got us here.

Have you every clawed at the gates of your memory, desperately trying to grab a piece that’s slowly disappearing? Have you ever run into the fog chasing someone who is becoming one with it? Have you revisited your most difficult hour only ‘cause you need your heart to ache, your body convulse? If you have then you know that pain makes us powerfully alive even if it breaks our hearts over and over again. The compulsion to chase a painful fading memory is all but human. It cannot be fought. It shouldn’t.

Memories, they make us who were are, slowly etching themselves into our faces, one wrinkle at a time. Every wrinkle…a memory of someone we loved, of someone we lost, of the lives we wished we’d lived, of the things we did..both right and wrong

Stories choose us, not the other way around.

The stories we are destined to tell find us.

When a story gets wedged in your head and refuses to go away, when it keeps coming back, again and again, despite your seeming inability to tell it, know this..the story has chosen you and You are ready, so tell it or it’ll haunt you to the end of your days. Characters too! They will find you, drop anchor and before you know, they will speak through you, shaping their own narrative, their own unique destiny. Let go and allow them. You have no option but to be a channel for them. This joy of surrender can only be felt… never truly explained.

Are infinite possibilities a storyteller's worst enemy or best friend? I'd say a bit of both really and one must be grateful for this paradox.

A deep level of personal engagement is key to good writing and complete immersion by the writer will translate into a richer and more engaging experience for the reader.