What a Time we Live in…Linda S. Glaz

In the most detailed novel, we couldn’t imagine our country under attack as it was this last week. We all woke up with the promise of a wonderful day. Then folks began to share the news. Boston Marathon had been bombed. Then Texas was host to a huge explosion. And then the manhunt.

I wanted to use my blog space today to remind everyone. Life does go on. Our country is still the greatest nation in the world. And we WILL overcome, as we have in times past. But what does this all mean to us as writers?

As writers, I realize our minds are whirring a gazillion miles a second as the stories inevitably form in our heads. Some guilt accompanies those thoughts, but for the most part, it’s just the writer in us that sees a story amidst such destruction and it’s not exactly something we can even help.

As authors, we are those entrusted to write down happenings. To create a written history of what we see, hear, and perhaps even feel. And while those these feelings are too fresh to become a story for most of us, in months, or even years down the road, these feelings will find their way onto pages. We will soften the edges ever so slightly so that a reader can connect without being overwhelmed with gruesome details…just enough lest they forget.

Corrie Ten Boom may have come the closest in her depictions of the camps during WWII. But still, Corrie recorded it for generations to come.

One day, not in the too distant future, a brave soul will have a wonderful, though horrific, idea for a story based on our pain of last week. And he or she will have the courage to tell that story through some character’s eyes. And the sadness and heartbreak will be able to be absorbed by many readers.

God bless writers who have the courage to tell the stories that will let the generations never forget!