Difficulties

I feel like I am dealing with lots of them. Not really in the scope of things dealing with the previous post, in fact some of them are not hidden at all and are open to the world to find out. For one, I have a popped blister on my foot right at the crease of where my toes bend when I walk that could possibly have gotten infected yesterday when it was created and popped in possibly the same jaunt between classes. It hardened overnight (we would have treated it then, but didn't know where our first aid kit was) and this morning we put neosporin on it. Doing so caused a circle of redness and lots of pain, even thought it had stopped hurting during the night sometime. I am keeping an eye on it, but needless to say, I don't really want to go to classes today, well... I don't want to cover it back up, worrying that it might make things worse.

Another fairly obvious difficulty right now is a paper cut I got from carrying around posters yesterday (hmm... seems like they are all stemming from my day yesterday, do I need to say that it wasn't a very good day?) that lies underneath my pinky nail. You know, right in the area where the skin meets the nail. Not much I can do about that, but try to ignore the pain while I type.

Speaking of typing, that is another difficulty I am dealing with. Writing. Not really writing in general, but, well... I don't know how to word this (which I guess could be a difficulty in and of itself, not knowing how to say things when I am an English major... maybe I need to expand my vocabulary...).

The phrase, "What would Jesus do?" isn't really something that is used often in my church being a Latter-day Saint, or more widely known, Mormon. Well, I guess it kind of is, but as far as I can tell, it seems to be more popular in different ... what's the word ...? I know there is one... well, all I can come up with is churches. In different faiths it seems to be more popular to use that phrase than with Mormons. Though I could be wrong. Nevertheless, we, as followers of Christ, try to do our best to be like Christ and to follow His example. What does this have to do with writing? Well I'll show you.

As a writer, I am the mouthpiece you might say, for my characters. Who my characters are, and what they do do not reflect back on me and what I would have done in such situations. That may not make a whole lot of sense, "You made the characters, you can make them do whatever you want them to." Well, yes. But no at the same time. How do I explain this...? As a writer, in my stories, I try to create verisimilitude. "What's that??" Well, to say it grandly (what's more grand than that huge word?), it is trying to emulate real life. To make the readers believe that such a thing could have happened. Even as a fiction writer, as I am trying to perfect, I try to create this verisimilitude, this "real life", this believable story. In my Creative Nonfiction class, I learned that even though it is "nonfiction", meaning based on a true story, apparently it is sometimes hard to still create this verisimilitude. "But it really happened!" the author might say. Well, if it doesn't feel like it could have happened to the reader, then you didn't accomplish it correctly.

Am I making any sense??

That all being said, I wrote a story for my Adv. Fiction class (that I have to turn in today for workshop next week). The characters are nothing like me. Well one of them is to a point. But when push comes to shove, I wouldn't have chosen the choices she did, yet with the character that I made, those choices were right for her. I personally think she choose wrong in fact. *sigh... It might be possible for me to re-write it and make it so she would emulate my values and things more, but I don't think it would be a believable story. Not everything ends up all hunky-dory in the end.

I don't feel like I am condoning what she chose, and in fact, it is obvious through the writing that I don't feel that way at all. Yet I am struggling with the two. Is it wrong for me, as a strong member of the LDS church to have written this? The story starts out in a bar, for one.

This is something that I have really been wondering with, even with my longer story/manga that I have been working on. Yet I worry even about posting this. I don't want people to judge who I am by the things that I write. Knowing my background, I know that life isn't perfect for everyone, and I almost wonder if everything that I write will have some sort of abuse happen to at least one of my characters. In any case, I had a friend read this who is also an English major and who also is LDS. He responded by saying, "It takes courage to address such issues, and I thought you did it very nicely." I still can't help but worry. My whole life wasn't particularly wonderful. Yet at the same time, I had people around me who loved me very much, plus I had the gospel in my life. Other people who have the same issues as I yet don't have the support system I had... what would have happened to them? I think it was with this mind set that I started writing this story. After I have an idea blossom when I start writing, the story just takes on it's own life and I feel like a spectator as it unfolds. Things like what happen in my story do happen, though I hate to admit it, and... I don't know. I sometimes even wonder if I am just making excuses to justify it.

*sigh...

I don't even know if I am making sense to anyone but me. I'm still not sure about actually posting this, but I guess we'll all find out if it does show up. Though I could say that I worry about what people will think of me, I worry more about what my Savior would think of me, and maybe I should just take it up with Him. Maybe I just needed to get this all out. With my background, it makes sense that somethings that I write won't be roses and sunshine throughout the piece right?