Falling Back In Love

   I wanted to update everyone on my writing today. It is the beginning of a new year, so I thought I would let everyone know how things are going. You might wonder what that has to do with the title. It actually has a lot to do with it. I’ve always loved writing, but when I first started on Wrong Place, it was like I had a hungering need to come back to those characters over and over again. It felt a lot like love. When any relationship is fresh, we normally have all of these huge dreams for it, and we believe that the new feelings we have might never fade. They do, though, and reality eventually hits. It’s just a relationship. Even if it’s a good one, it’s still just like everyone else’s, or at least very close to the same. The passion in who we love is lost. In the same way, what we do can be filled with passion and love. Looking back, I loved writing those first books more than I’ve loved anything else except for my family. (Sorry, friends!) The last few novels I’ve written have held a familiar love for me, but it was a cooler love. It wasn’t filled with the excitement that it was at the beginning. The know how in writing was there, and the love never left, but the passion . . . that was gone. I’ve started a new book over the last month. It’s a standalone title that is far different than the other things I’ve done. It’s a romance/slice of life kind of story, and because I had no expectations or idea which direction it should go in, I’ve been able to pour whatever I wanted to into it without limiting any creative expression. From page one of this new story, I found the passion that I had been missing. I opened up another chapter in my life as a writer and opened up to the idea of making characters who were neither good or bad but simply perfectly imperfect. That statement might sound a little off, but it’s what I look for every day in people. I don’t want people in my life who believe they always do the right thing or those who hurt just to hurt. I want all the flaws and imperfections in them and myself to be the breadcrumbs that tie our stories together. That’s what this story is about - two people you could argue are actually terrible people who grow and change into what we all do. We go from innocence to skepticism and vanity. We start our lives believing in people and with a fair amount of humility, and by the midpoint of it, we seem to have nothing but doubt in those around us, and we only rely on ourselves, as if we could solve anything meaningful that way. Then we think back to who we used to be - that kid who wanted to grow up and figure out life so fast. We realize that the kid had life figured out better than we do now, and we wish to go back to a place of innocence, optimism, and complete passion about the people and things in our lives. I guess that’s where I’m at now as a person, and it’s what my story is about. I’m writing a story that shows two people grow up from the age of fourteen until they are in their thirties. It’s cute, funny, and romantic, but in the middle and late story it also shows the betrayals of those around us and of ourselves. It shows how our dreams and moral values can be so easily thrown to the side for what we think we want, but at the end of it all, we find that we wish we could make it back to the beginning and just enjoy that for a little longer. Just like in this book, we have to question, is it too late? Can you go back to innocence and passion after it has passed you by? I think so. I’ve found my passion in writing again through this book, and I’m still searching for the innocence part. Maybe we do lose that forever, but pure love for someone or something is still worth pursuing. As long as you haven’t given up on an idea, it’s not over. You still have a chance at being who you should be in a situation you can be happy in and passionate about.

   You might be asking why I would write a book about people who go from pureness to complete chaos - people who are probably awful. Here’s why. I see those people everywhere. I see one of them when I look in the mirror. We find happiness, we pray it never changes, it does, and then we walk away from it without ever thinking that another spark could appear. I see it every day. People lose passion in their jobs, marriages, and friendships. Some say it’s time for a change and walk away. Others simply say that it’s normal. They think that all people eventually hate what they do and that love was never about a feeling or passion at all. To them, the dullness that takes over life is simply an inevitable normality that we all must face. I’m here to tell you that it isn’t. I’m back in love with my career, and it all came from shaking up what I write about and opening up to what I really care about. Right now, that’s people and what motivates us to love and lie, so that’s what I’m writing about. I think the same can apply in relationships. Don’t walk away from a person or a job that you used to love. It’s the easy thing to do. Anyone can say it just wasn’t meant to last and leave all that could have been behind. Nothing worth accomplishing will ever happen without hardship, though. Life isn’t about finding what or who will always make you feel good. It’s about figuring out what or who you love and then finding ways to make that something that always feels fresh and new, no matter how long you’ve been concentrated on that person or career. That’s the hard part, and it comes with a lot of peaks and valleys. When you’re down in those valleys, it can feel like all you loved is gone, but when you don’t walk out, you might just find that when you reach the peak once again, the same feelings that existed before never actually left. They just needed a reason to come out again. That love was, and always would be, inside you. Don’t leave before you can find it again. I see too many marriages ending around me and too many people who quit on passions that used to make their lives whole. Maybe I’m just sentimental. I’ve always been a one woman, one car, one house kind of guy. I don’t believe in quitting anything or on anyone, and that’s often led to a lot of people not quite understanding me. I like that, though. I don’t think there’s enough of those people in the world. I want to be that person who’s always with the same woman and is pursuing the passions that deep down have always been within me. In short, many people claim that love is an action and that passion has absolutely nothing to do with it. They think that feelings are just something that fades with time and that love and a feeling are two different things. I can see that to some extent. You don’t have to feel passion to love someone or something, but I will say this. Passion is the thing that drives us through those low areas in love, and it’s something that’s lost many times in life, but those brief glimpses we get of it are worth all the work that comes along the way. Life is only a collection of moments. Don’t waste your moments by walking away before you get back to where you want to be with the people and things you love. It’s the biggest crime you could commit against yourself. See the obvious. See the man or woman who you love, the children who make your life worth living, and the passions that used to consume you. Now, remember how all of those things used to make you feel. Remember how it felt the first time you loved that person or those children and what it was like when you first found something that you would have done for free. It was a pure love, and it brought a freshness to your life. Now, try to get back to that place. They say that we can’t love like we’re sixteen when we’re old and that we can’t go back to the bright young person who had all the hope in the world in their career. They say it’s over. I say that you’ll catch glimpses of who you once were if you only keep looking. You can’t go back, and you can’t ever find the innocence that you once had, but catching glimpses of it and realizing that you’re still that person inside is worth all the effort in the world. Trust me. I find the little pieces of a younger me sometimes, and I feel all of the passion, love, and innocence that once was, and still can be, if I just don’t quit on it today.