A THOUGHT OF MANY COLORS Written by Arleen M. Kaptur
You have a great idea for a story or an article. It’s perfect and thought of sharing it with others knows no bounds. There is your computer, your desk, and you are ready. Fingers on keyboard, and you click away putting those special thoughts into black and white form. Something is happening - it isn’t same story - everything is different and someone stole your Emmy Award. What happened? Between great ideas in your head and reality on paper - something did definitely happen. Before you check out latest crime statistics in your area, take a moment and a deep breath. Your story is there but in your mind’ eye it was complete, total, and without any errors or revisions necessary. It was just there - a perfect, pretty package that needed no ribbons or fancy paper. What you have on paper is reality - this is your story in form world will see. Your thoughts are there, words are there, but they do need ribbons and fancy papers. Each person has their own way of thinking - their own way of reacting. We don’t even think about it - it’s just there. We don’t flick a switch and we don’t push a button. It’s just there and there is good. Every writer soon finds out what that burst of energy, that literary genius really is. It’s birth of a story, an article, a poem, or whatever final outcome will be. Without this “spark” there would be no literature in world. Did you ever touch an outlet wrong way or pull a plug and that white/blue spark just rushes out? When that spark came, it made you jump. It motivated you to stop doing whatever you were doing. It directed you to take precautions. You realized that you had to do something at that very moment.
| | IN YOUR SHADOWWritten by Arleen M. Kaptur
There is an old saying: You can choose your friends but not your family. Everyone has certain choices to make in their lives, except for that one initial launch into this world. We are born and we are who we are - no decision on our part - not even chance at some suggestions.Your entire being - color of your skin, your grandparents’ homeland, your entire genetic make-up is right there - and now you have a choice - you can do what you believe you can, or you can carry your sense of pride or shame with you your entire life and never reach goals and reap benefits you could have. Writing is a career where choices from very beginning are yours. In a sense, you create your character, give him all his genetic qualities, and then even write history for his ancestry. You are in control of who, what, where, and when. However, as with any choice, there are drawbacks as well as advantages. If your character is not a member of your particular ethnic, religious, or race group, your ability to relate and to transmit ideas run into a brick wall, so to speak. Sure, you can put yourself in their place, but it would be according to your standards, and your beliefs. This ingrained system of standards and beliefs were taught to you by your parents, relatives, environment. and world itself. Now that you have decided to write, how do you overcome this stumbling block? The literary piece you give birth to should be as factual as possible, even though it is a fictional piece. If you feel you can, just in your own mind, place yourself in someone else’s soul, forget it. You can’t because only person you can reach into and enter their very being is yourself. Now what do you do? The answer is reach out, network, and include everything in your research work. Listen to both sides of coin, and if you don’t agree, notion to state your carved in stone moral or otherwise statements are irrelevant. Your reader needs to place themselves in your character’s heart and see world through his/her eyes. A slight remark made to one person may be a monumental insult to an individual of another genre. Don’t judge, or build up or belittle circumstances. State them exactly, as best you can, from that literary person’s inherited background and make-up.
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