What Writers Often Forget About Freedom

image from Bookish.com

Over the weekend I was the only one awake in the car at 11pm as we drove back from a family 4th-of-July celebration two hours away from our home. I was flipping through radio stations trying to find something to keep me alert, when I came across a BBC program called World Book Club, in which they were interviewing Colombian author Juan Gabriel Vasquez. (Listen to the entire interview here.)

Well, I always jump on the chance to learn from a published author, and it's rare I get exclusive car radio privileges with no interruptions from my little peanut gallery, so I settled into my driver's seat to listen as I drove through the rainy night, the soft thwip-thwup of the windshield wipers marking a steady background rhythm behind Vasquez's deep, thoughtful voice coming through my speakers.

Vasquez has published several books, but the one they were discussing was, "The Sound of Things Falling." Don't you just love that title? It just kind of makes you sit up and want to know what it's about.

Anyway, he said something during the interview that really made me think, and so beautifully fit with our celebration of Independence Day that I knew I had to share it with you today:

"Memory is an essential part of my work as a writer. I think that writing novels and the act of remembering go hand in hand. The act of remembering is a moral act; it has moral connotations. It speaks to our need to keep alive something that, without literature, without fiction, would die.  

"As human beings we're constantly competing with authorities for control of our life story. The State- all those words we write with capital letters: the State, the Government, Religion- they're all great narrators and they strive to control their own version of our past. Fiction is to me the place where we as citizens raise our hands and say, 'I don't remember it happening that way,' or, 'I think it might have happened in another way.' And that moral act of remembering from the point of view of a citizen is one of the things that novels do that cannot be done in any other way. To go to our recent past and find out what's going on in (for lack of a better word) the soul of a person, the mind of a person, is one of the great privileges that fiction affords us." – Juan Gabriel Vasquez

He said that so eloquently, and what an important reminder to us that the ability to write and have those recorded memories (either ours or others') read and shared is indeed a privilege, it is a freedom that I think we often overlook, and as Vasquez's words imply, it's one that should not be taken for granted.

There are many of our predecessors who have not fought on battlefields, but on the front of public opinion, who have painstakingly paved the way for the freedoms we now enjoy. I think specifically this week of the profound work of Jewish writer Elie Wiesel, who passed away just two days ago. When he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the committee called him a "messenger to mankind." If anyone was a soldier in the battle for the preservation of memory through literature, Elise Wiesel was.

So this Independence Day, I encourage you to be a little more grateful that you can write without fear, and to remember that through our writing we can be a voice to memory, a voice for the ordinary person whose name may never appear in a history book, and whose experiences might be lost without the work of writers like us.

Random Thoughts for this Week....

First, an apology.  I just started a new job, and it is beating me up. Quite the adjustment period. I haven't had the brain energy to think of something amazing for everyone, but I have had a few thoughts. I'll share them, and you can discuss amongst yourselves....

1) A couple of weeks ago, I posted a post about the Ordain Women controversy..... at www.jewelleannwilliams.com.  My WHOLE point is that whatever the points of view, are, none of those things are so important as to negate the LOVE that we, as sisters, should have for each other. I was amazed that even when that was the theme of my post, half of the responses I got were STILL the backbiting, "good riddance" type-- People, in the words of the most awesome President Dieter Uchtdorf, STOP IT!  Love, love, love, love, love love love--that's our job.

2) Happy Independence Day!!  My thought is that I love my country. Most of us do. The real question is, am I, are each of us, willing to do whatever it takes to protect our country? I don't mean soldiering, although our military are heroes and angels for the rest of us. What I mean is getting involved on a local and a visceral, invested level with our government--speaking out when things happen that we don't agree with--voting--campaigning for honest, capable candidates--all of those things that are going to make or break our system of government. It's something I need to work on more, and I invite all of you to look at your involvement and do what you can.

3)Writing and Positivity:  Positive thinking is so important. With regards to writing, I need to be thinking more positively, and spending less time whining and complaining. "I can't get a contract," becomes exactly that. "I haven't gotten a contract yet, BUT I WILL!" puts a different spin on things. I don't have the research to cite, but I know for a fact that your brain chemistry changes when you feed it negative vs. positive thoughts--and there's a positive spin to be put on everything. So, something else for me to work on.

I have lots more--but I'll leave you with that. Putting a positive spin on it, I WILL get used to working outside of the home and my brain will kick into gear to bring you more amazing material, on writing articles for magazines, on writing in general, or.... something else completely different.

Happy Writing!!

Declare Yourself!!!

Today is the 4th of July, the day we celebrate with family gatherings, picnics, and fireworks. For most of my life the Forth has been filled with preparations for these activities. But in my (cough) maturity I've realized that it is not just about those things. It is a day commemorating the moment 236 years ago when the original 13 colonies declared they'd had enough of arbitrary decisions from a kingdom an entire ocean away determining the lives, liberty, and happiness of those independent colonists with no consideration for what their needs were.

So today I give you the Declaration of Independence, the document that began the movement of our country into a cohesive unit, separate from the rule of King George III of England. I found it very interesting as I read it how many of these same freedoms are now being infringed upon, both by others in the name of law, and by the government itself.

I'm not suggesting we declare our independence from the United States of America. What I am suggesting, however, is that we stand up for all righteousness. We know where the lines are drawn, and what we believe.

 Stand for truth. Stand for righteousness. Stand for liberty. Stand and be counted.

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton