One piece of advice often given to writers is to think about stories they have enjoyed in the past. When I think back the books I most enjoyed as a child growing up in the 1960's, Thornton Burgess's stories about the furred and feathered creatures that lived in the Green Forest and the Smiling Pond rank right up there. I credit Burgess's stories with helping me develop empathy for animals and a deep appreciation of the natural world.
As a teenager reader, I started to enjoy science fiction books, particularly those of Andre Norton and Robert A. Heinlein. Norton and Heinlein remain among my favorite science fiction authors, joined more recently by John Scalzi and Kim Stanley Robinson.
I first started writing and sending out fiction stories after I retired from full-time work in 2014. Many, though by no means all, of my stories have leveraged two of my most-enjoyed reading experiences—science fiction tales and animal stories. "Mission on Nemistat" is my seventh published science fiction story with an animal protagonist.
The inspiration for "Mission on Nemistat" came from thinking about the question of faith--specifically, faith in what we devote ourselves to do, whatever that may be. As one of the characters, Ninja, suggests, doubt isn't necessarily a bad thing if it helps us find the way to a more reflective and deeper commitment to the causes, occupations, and organizations to which we devote ourselves.
I think many of us (if not all) have doubts at some point in time, whether those doubts are about the value of our contributions, the merits of the tasks we do in our jobs, or the causes we commit ourselves to. Hopefully, we can find our way from doubt to a degree of certainty, as our protagonist Star manages to do. To do so can be liberating and energizing, though we must also realize that doubt is seldom banished forever. That's just the way it is.
Perhaps you've found, as I have, that sometimes, it's enough to say, "for now, it's all good." May we all find that peace, from time to time, as we go about our daily lives.
Thanks, Lisa! Very Interesting!
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment