The thing that is essential to writing is being able to remember things from life’s experiences, allowing those experiences to work their way through mature filters to become something that might be beneficial to others. People relate to shared experience. Empathy becomes a pathway to finding others who have gone through life’s hard places and come away better for it.

It doesn’t matter what genre, if the story carries messages that help the reader reach a better understanding of their world, that story provides satisfaction. This is a writer’s goal in life. Provide good story. Help others.

Some experiences in life for a writer might be horrific. Horrifying experiences can provide good story. They can also lead to deep-seated bitterness. Deep-seated bitterness can stunt growth, lead to physical illness, and taint everyone else around.

The only way to get rid of bitterness is to forgive and forget. But for a writer to forget is not good. But for a human to hold to terrible memories is the way to illness and worse. So what to do, what to do?

Forgiveness is imperative. I think I’ve reached a good balance here.

I struggle to protect the memories I have of what happened to me in the early seventies to write the historical fiction I need to write. I think I have come to forgive. I have certainly learned and grown for my experiences. But this is something that I deal with daily…no forgiveness is horrible, forgetting is not good for the writing.

I would love to hear what other writers have to say on the subject.